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find: Theatre U.S.A.
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Carolyn Nur Wistrand,  

playwright, U.S.A.

The scene showing the island spirits of the Caribbean, from the play: Denmark Vesey & The Insurrection of 1822. A Play in Two Acts, 9 Scenes by Carolyn Nur Wistrand Peformed at Michigan State University, October 2003 and Beecher High School, Flint, Michigan , March 2003.
Photo: March 2003 at the Beecher High School Performance.

I lecture in The department of Africana Studies, at The University of Michigan-Flint.
My concentration is in African World Performance, Contemporary Black Theatre, & Performance Aesthetics and Traditions in the African World. I am also the playwright in residence for the Beecher Community School District, creating original historical plays for urban youth that deal with the African presence in America.
Recently I was awarded a "Confronting Racism Grant" from the Charles Mott Foundation to dramatize the life of a African American Female. The play, entitled, Ida B. & The Lynching Tree, was a historical account of Miss Ida B. Wells, the African American Journalist of the 19th century who fearlessly crusaded to bring the atrocities and injustices against African Americans being lynched in the South to the attention of mainstream American consciousness.

Scenes showing enslaved young African men, from the play: Denmark Vesey & The Insurrection of 1822. Photo: March 2003 at the Beecher High School Performance.

I have also recently complete another historical drama for youth entitled, Denmark Vesey & The Insurrection of 1822.

It is a historical play that chronicles major events in the life of famed African American abolitionist, Denmark Vesey, a free man of color, who was put to death with 34 of his compatriots in 1822 for planning an insurrection in Charleston, South Carolina.

In early 2003, I published a book of 4 plays with Bahá´í themes entitled Birth of Woman's Spirit/Táhirih & Other Plays.

In March of 2003, I launched a lecture tour, focusing on Táhirih, which includes scenes from the play, performed by students in the department of Africana Studies, University of Michigan-Flint. Over seventeen years of work has gone into this collection of historical plays.

Táhirih, a play in 3 Acts, was first performed in 1988 at the International Youth Conference at The University of Indiana in Bloomington, U.S.A.

It dramatizes major events in the life of famed Persian poetess and disciple of the Báb. She is an inspiration for many Bahá´ís on the education and rights of women. She was executed in 1852 at age 36 for her views.

Scene one, The women's quarters in the home of Mullá Tagi Qazuin, Perisa, from Táhirih, a play in 3 Acts (12 Scenes) by Carolyn Nur Wistrand. Performed at University of Indiana-Bloomington, International Bahá´í Youth Conference, 1988 & the University of Michigan-Flint, 1988.
Photo from the play: Second Coming by C.N. Wistrand. Left to Right: Diana Morgan as Daisy Welsh and Hermione C. Pickens
as Lily Belle Welsh.



Other plays in the book are: LUA, a play in 17 scenes, based on the life of Lua Moore Getsinger, performed in Evanston, Illionis for the National Bahá´í History Conference, Kalamazoo College, and the Louhelen Bahá´í Center.

Second Coming, the 3rd play in the collection, has been produced Off-Broadway with Lovecreek Productions.

Birth of a Woman's Spirit is a collection of three of her plays ("Tahirih", "LUA", and "Birth of a Second Coming") available from: Amazon.com,
Barnes & Nobles
or Xlibris.com


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