First Woman from New York, NY
Pigfoot Mary’s Harlem Renaissance
DATE Friday, January 29
- 10:15 am
- 12:15 pm
GRADES Grades 4 & Up
DURATION 65 Minutes
Pigfoot Mary, secretly wealthy from her popular food stand, dreams of California’s skies and awaits news on a property sale that could mark her departure from Harlem. But leaving isn’t easy— her world includes Hot Fingers the Piano Player, The Garveyite, Zora Neale Hurston, and the famous Langston Hughes. Is her legacy in the food and friendships she’s built or in following a new dream? Inspired by Lillian Harris Dean, one of Harlem’s most successful early entrepreneurs in the 1920s, this lively two actor play bursts with jazz, vibrant characters, and dances of the Harlem Renaissance. At once fun, poignant, and educational, Pigfoot Mary’s Harlem Renaissance connects the fire of that artistic explosion to the questions of identity, ownership, and legacy that still shape us today.
SOL & Curriculum Connections
SOL Connections to English: 4.C.1 (A), 4.RL.1 (A,B,C), 5.RL.1 (A,B,C), 5.RL.3 (A), 6.RL, 6.C.1 (A), 7.RL.1, 7.C.1 (A), 8.RL.1, 8.C.1 (A); SOL Connections to History and Social Science: USII, CE, WG.7; SOL Connections to Fine Arts (Theatre Arts): 4.1, 4.3, 4.4, 4.6, 4.9, 5.2, 5.6, 5.9, 6.2, 6.3 (B), 6.5, 6.7, 7.3 (A,B), 7.4, 7.5, 8.4, 8.5, 8.7; (Music): 4.3 (D,G), 4.4, 4.6, 4.7, 5.6 (B), 5.7, 6.7, 6.9, 7.3, 8.3 (A), 8.4; Curriculum Connections to the concepts of the Harlem Renaissance, The Great Migration, African American history and culture, jazz, blues, poetry, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, entrepreneurship, storytelling, identity, legacy, resilience, dreams, and the power of the arts to inspire social and cultural change.
Performance Guide Coming Soon!
