“I was thinking about what happened. And how I thought we should have said something to that guy. But we shouldn’t have said something.

We should have done something.”

The Next Jessye Norman melds speech and song in a tale of two young women forging careers in an industry where the gatekeepers view race as fundamental to the value of a performer.

Tristan Bates Theatre. Blacktress Season. 13-14 December 2018. 8pm.

Cast & creatives

Cast Merryl Ansah, Esmé Laudat, Martha Pothen

Creators Cassiopeia Berkeley-Agyepong, Simone Ibbett-Brown

The Next Jessye Norman was later developed into Shuck’n’Jive.