In June 2022, reproductive rights took a giant leap backwards when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. In the United States, we can drive when we turn 16, and vote when we turn 18. But we no longer have the bodily autonomy to make the choices that will impact us the most.
In My Body No Choice, eight of America’s most exciting female playwrights share what choice means to them, through the telling of fiction and non-fiction stories rooted in personal experience; theirs or a friend’s. Because this is a time when women need to tell their stories.
Join us at Ashé Cultural Arts Center for a staged reading featuring local New Orleanians. Directed by Anne-Liese Juge Fox, and starring a phenomenal cast of actors — Tommye Myrick, Aiyana Thomas, Jessica Podewell, Amy Chaffee, Lourdes Castillo, Karel Sloane-Boekbinder, Idella Johnson, and Troi Bechet — My Body My Choice illuminates American women's continued struggle for liberation.
Free and open to the public. RSVP required.
The play was commissioned by Molly Smith, Artistic Director of Arena Theater in Washington, DC. My Body No Choice will be performed at theaters across the United States prior to the election on November 8, 2022.
Meet the actors:
Tommye Myrick (2020 Big Easy Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Recipient) attended Xavier University. Her interest in social justice was fueled by her acceptance into the Free Southern Theater at the age of 18. She attended The University of Michigan, receiving her Masters in just nine months. While working on her PH. D. she taught full-time at Eastern Michigan University. In NYC she studied with renowned theater director, producer, mentor, and friend Gene Frankel. She made her New York stage and directorial debut starring in Lawrence Holder’s one woman show ZORA and directing Nobert Davidson’s – El Hajj Malik, while working with the Negro Ensemble and Henry St. Settlement Theatre Companies. Ms. Myrick is the founding artistic director of Voices in the Dark Repertory Theatre Company formed 1992.
Pre-Katrina, Ms. Myrick served as Assistant Professor of Humanities and Assistant Director of the Center for African and African American Studies while serving as Artistic Director of Southern University at New Orleans’ Multi-Purpose Auditorium.
Post- Katrina she was the interim Executive Director of the New Orleans African American Museum. Since her retirement she has devoted her time to Voices and mounting New Orleans’ first Historical Outdoor Drama- Le Code Noir. Le Code Noir written by her, and Mark R. Sumner is scheduled to open in Fall 2023 in historic Congo Square. Quoting Myrick who says “…I am not an actress , never have been, never profess to be. I am an imaginator realist. I can only be who I think I AM.”
Aiyana Thomas is a recent graduate of Tulane University from Folsom, Louisiana. She has been a performer for many years, first as a classical ballet dancer, moving onto acting in high school and continuing through college. Some of her favorite performances include her role as Antigone in Jean Anouilh’s Antigone and her most recent performance as Wiletta Mayer in Alice Childress’ Trouble In Mind. She is passionate about joining this cast to start a community-led conversation on social issues that profoundly affect the greater New Orleans community, especially the coalescing of legislation and reproductive justice. She feels this experience will allow her to learn not only as a performer but as an individual. She would like to thank Ashé Cultural Arts Center and Dr.Anne-Liese Fox for this opportunity.
Jessica Podewell is a professional actor who has worked in theatres throughout Austin, Chicago, and New York. She originally hails from New Orleans and is currently a professor at Tulane in the Theatre and Dance department. Locally she has directed and acted all over the city and is a proud founding member of the children’s theatre The Patchwork Players.
Amy Chaffee, Sarah Ruhl's "An Uplifting High School Graduation Speech,” has been acting professionally since 1976. “My Body, No Choice” marks Amy’s New Orleans theatre debut. Recent on-screen appearances include as serial killer fodder in both “Interview With The Vampire” (AMC) and “Why Women Kill” (Peacock). She is a dialect coach for film, television and stage. Local collaborations include Le Petit Theatre, Southern Rep, Mondo Bizarro, and Goat in the Road. Also, Amy produces theatre festivals internationally and performs extended voice performance regularly at the Roy Hart Theatre in Malérargues, France. Amy is an associate professor in Voice and Acting at Tulane University. MFA- The Old Globe Theatre (USD), BFA - Tisch School Of the Arts (NYU.)
Idella Johnson was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. She studied theatre at Delgado Community College, and later went on to receive a degree in Music and Arts Administration from Loyola University in New Orleans. She began her career as a professional actor starring in plays and musicals in the city of New Orleans. For her outstanding work she won three Big Easy Awards, including one for Best Actress in a Musical and two for Best Supporting Actress in a musical. She made her screen debut in The Mortician, which led to other roles in TV and Film. Her notable credits include, Queen of the South, Greyson Family Christmas, Leverage: Redemption, the award winning short, Blood Runs Down, which earned her a Women in Horror Film Best Performance nomination, and the 2021 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award winning film Ma Belle, My Beauty now playing on Demand (STARZ, Apple TV, Prime etc.) in which she stars as the Lead, earning her rave reviews for her portrayal of Bertie, a complex soulful jazz singer finding her way back to herself in this polyamorous love story. For more info follow her @idellalana (Instagram), Idella Johnson (Facebook), and @alledimoon (Twitter).
New Orleans native, actor and song stylist. Troi Bechet has graced stages locally and nationally. Stage credits include “Effie” in Dreamgirls, “Dr Claire Reid” in Relativity, “Billie Holiday” in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill, “Maxine Faulk” in The Night of the Iguana, and “Eunice Hubbell” in A Streetcar Named Desire. She was a member of the touring cast of “Swimming Upstream”, a play about the spirit of New Orleans in the wake of the Katrina levee breaks. She has worked extensively with Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Junebug Productions, and Voices in the Dark Repertory Company to use the arts as a tool to build awareness of social justice issues. Troi received a Big Easy Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her portrayal of “Caroline” in the Jefferson Performing Arts Society production of Tony Kushner’s “Caroline, or Change”. Mostly recently she was nominated for a Big Easy award for Best Actress in a Musical and Best Original Play for her portrayal of New Orleans- born gospel singer Mahalia Jackson and as playwright for “Flowers for Halie”.
Lourdes Castillo, a junior from Los Angeles, majors in Communications and Theater Performance with a business minor at Tulane. She has been in previous productions at Tulane including Reframed, She Kills Monsters, Eclipsed, Plays with Fire, Antigone, and Our Dear Dead Drug Lord. Lourdes also currently works at the 13th Gate Haunted House in Baton Rouge. She would like to thank the wonderful Anne-Liese Fox for including her in such a powerful production!
Karel Sloane-Boekbinder is an award winning, versatile artist with over 35 years artistic experience and 25 years teaching experience. Her disciplines include theater, writing, film/video and visual art. Karel has performed nationally and internationally for stage, film, video and radio and worked locally in professional theater companies including The Ashé Cultural Arts Center, Southern Rep., Anthony Bean Community Theater, The Jefferson Performing Arts Society and The American Theatre Project. She is a SAG Eligible Equity Member Candidate represented by King Watts Talent for film and television.
As a visual artist, she has exhibited art-work across the U.S. and completed outdoor murals locally for the Lakeshore Property Owners Assoc. (two~8 foot by 11 foot murals at the intersections of Canal Blvd., Allen Toussaint Blvd. and Lakeshore Drive) and 48 murals as part of the New Orleans Street Gallery (known affectionately as the Utility Box Project) coordinated by CVUNOLA.org.
Meet the director:
Anne-Liese Juge Fox is a native New Orleanian and has acted internationally and nationally on both stage and screen and as a performer of her own original solo work and collaborative devised performances. As both a theatre artist and scholar, Fox’s creative drive and research are driven by the intersection of personal story, place, and community. She has been most active in new play development, adaptations of classical plays, and in devised and improvisational performance. Her professional practice in Applied Theatre includes Playback Improvisation, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and Story Circle Process. Anne-Liese collaborated with Ashé Cultural Arts Center to form NOLA Playback Theatre improvisational ensemble which worked in recovery efforts in community settings after the Katrina levee breaks disaster. Also, in collaboration with Ashé, she was a co-writer and performer of Swimming Upstream with V (formerly Eve Ensler and V-Day) as dramaturg. Fox studied theatre at NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, the Jacques Lecoq School of Theatre in Paris, and earned her doctorate in Theatre and Performance Studies at L.S.U. Fox has taught and directed theatre productions at Loyola and Tulane Universities and is currently an instructor of Theatre at Southeastern in Hammond. Anne-Liese is thrilled to collaborate once again with Ashé Cultural Arts and grateful to the whole Ashé team.