Employing gritty poetry of the streets, Jelly Belly is a powerful story of a convict returning from a brief prison stay to resume his position as the neighborhood kingpin.
Photo by Jennifer Girard
An early draft of Jelly Belly titled Jelly Belly Don’t Mess with Nobody was awarded the 1985 Cornerstone National Playwriting Award and was produced by Penumbra Theatre Company. The production was directed by James A. Williams and featured Latifu as Jelly Belly, Abdul Razzac as Mike, Walter Pridgen as Kenny, and Marion McClinton as Bruce.
Photo by Jennifer Girard
Jelly Belly was also awarded the Theodore Ward Playwriting Award and was produced by Victory Gardens Theatre in Chicago in 1989 featuring A.C. Smith as Jelly Belly, Charles Glenn as Mike, Oscar Jordan as Kenny, Diane White as Barbara, and Donald Douglass as Bruce.
Victory Gardens produced a revival of Jelly Belly in 1996.
The New York production of Jelly Belly was produced by Woodie King’s New Federal theatre, Inc. in association with Victory Gardens Theater and featured A.C. Smith as Jelly Belly, Weyman Thompson as Mike, Ramon Melindez Moses as Kenny, Gina Torres as Barbara, and Donald Douglass as Bruce.
Photo by Bert Andrews
“Jelly Belly offers an unremittingly bleak portrait of inner-city life and the enormous pressure on working-class black men to be gangsters.”
Stephen Holden, New York Times
Cast size: 4 m., 1 w.
Available in the anthology, Seven Black Plays, edited by Chuck Smith with a foreword by August Wilson. Northwestern University Press.
For licensing information, please contact Barbara Hogenson, Barbara Hogenson Agency