Guyanese-American solo-show artist, actress and playwright Ingrid Griffith, known for her famous autobiographical one-woman production Demerara Gold, brings Shirley Chisholm: Unbossed & Unbowed, to the Theatre Guild next Friday.
In the GEMS Theatre Productions presentation, Ingrid, who wrote the play, will treat Guyanese to another top-class solo performance. The play details the life of the Brooklyn-born politician who had Caribbean parents, became the first African-American woman to win a seat in the US Congress, and also ran for the presidency of the US.
As the sole performer, Ingrid plays Shirley as well as other characters. In Unbossed and Unbowed, ten-year-old Shirley returns to the US after being separated from her parents – her father, a Guyanese from Linden and her mother, a Barbadian – during the Great Depression. Having spent that time with her grandmother in Barbados, Shirley’s Caribbean heritage became manifested in her bearing, speech pattern and expectations of herself.
