THE ARTISTS OF MARYS SEACOLE
Season 6 Series: A discussion with the artists of Marys Seacole with Eric Ruffin, Felicia Curry, Kim Bey, and special guest Dr. Martha A. Dawson, President of the National Black Nurses Association.
Pulitzer Prize Winner Jackie Sibblies Drury celebrates the complex legacy of care-giving and frontline nursing on the battlefield of trauma, crisis, and war. Mary Seacole, an ambitious Jamaican woman determined to live a grand life of service, traverses oceans and eras as she and her descendants contend with layers of racial disparity and inequity when considering who gets treatment first in times of crisis, and who is left to console whom.
Join us @ 4PM on Friday, July 10, 2020 via Facebook Live.
ERIC RUFFIN, Director
Eric Ruffin, director/teacher, has helmed regional productions at Mosaic, Lyric Rep., Young Playwright’s, Kennedy Ctr., Mann Ctr., The French Embassy, U.S. Supreme Court, Theatre Alliance, Studio, Crossroads, African Continuum, Imagination Stage, Luna Stage, and George Street Playhouse. For both Howard U. and Rutgers U. he has directed numerous mainstage productions. Ruffin is a former Drama League Fellow, Folger Shakespeare Fellow, Princess Grace Awardee for Dance, and NYTW Usual Suspect. His direction of Langston Hughes’ BLACK NATIVITY was recognized with 3 Helen Hayes Awards including Best Musical. He’s currently on faculty at Howard University and Duke Ellington School of the Arts. Also,Ruffin is a commissioned artist for Studio Theatre and serves on Woolly Mammoth’s Board of Directors.
KIM BEY, Performer
New York/Off-Broadway: Center Stage (Zooman and the Sign); Actor’s Studio Free Theatre (Salt); John Houseman (The American Plan, Can’t Go Nowhere w/Ya). Regional credits: Arena Stage (Little Foxes, The Cherry Orchard, Six Characters in Search of an Author); Baltimore Center Stage (Beneatha’s Place); St. Louis Repertory (Having Our Say); Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park (Having Our Say); Delaware Theatre Company (Wake Up Lou Riser); Lyric Repertory/Utah (A Raisin in the Sun). Kim is a certified Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework, with multiple credits as a Voice and Dialect coach. Education: Howard University (BFA); Rutgers University (MFA); British American Drama Academy @ Oxford (BADA); National Alliance of Acting Teachers; and The Shakespeare Theatre Fellowship in Washington, D.C.
FELICIA CURRY, Performer
Felicia Curry is thrilled to be back at Mosaic Theatre after playing Undine in last season’s Fabulation. Since then, she’s played Dr. Livingston in ‘Agnes of God’ for Factory 449 (HH nom), the Bus Driver in ‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus’ at the Kennedy Center (HH nom) and Jacquline Marie Butler in the world premiere of ‘Queens Girl: Black in the Green Mountains’ at Everyman Theatre. OFF-BROADWAY: We Three Lizas, DMLRR: The Brontes, Petite Rouge. NATIONAL TOURS: KC: Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka, Mattel/Live Nation: Barbie Live!, Capitol Steps. REGIONAL: VA Repertory Theatre: The Color Purple [RTCC Award], Gulfshore Playhouse, Riverside Center for the Performing Arts. DC AREA: Signature Theatre, Ford’s Theatre (Artistic Associate), Arena Stage, Factory 449 (Company Member): Lela & Co. [Helen Hayes Award], The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Round House Theatre, Studio Theatre, Rep Stage, MetroStage, Adventure Theatre, Imagination Stage, Toby’ Columbia. AWARDS: 7 additional Helen Hayes nominations, 3 Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Ensemble. Two-time host of the Helen Hayes Awards. Featured in the Washington Post (12 Stage Dynamos) and Washingtonian Magazine (10 Stage Stars). EDUCATION: UMCP.
Dr. MARTHA A. DAWSON, DNP, RN, FACHE
Martha A. Dawson, DNP, RN, FACHE is the President of the National Black Nurses Association. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing (SON). She earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree from the UASON. In 2010, she earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice from Case Western Reserve University Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. Dr. Dawson completed her hospital administration residency at Gaston Memorial Hospital, Gastonia, NC. Her practice, clinical and research focus is health systems and nursing leadership. Under her leadership, the Nursing and Health Systems Administration track at UABSON was ranked #2 in the US and has been ranked in the top 10 for 10 years.
Dr. Dawson is a Scholar in the Sparkman Global Health Center at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Fellow in the American College of Healthcare Executives, Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Executive Fellow, and a Johnson & Johnson Wharton Nurse Administrative Fellow. She has served as the principal investigator, project director and coordinator on HRSA and foundation grants exceeding $2.5 million. In 2019, Dr. Dawson was inducted into the Alabama Nurses Hall of Fame.
She has publications in books, journals, newsletters and podcasts. Under her leadership the University of Louisville Hospital was the first hospital in the US to provide drive through flu shots, the model that the CDC is using with COVID-19. She was a contributing author in the Drive-Thru Flu Shots: A model for mass immunization.