Cadillac Crew is about an integrated group of Civil Rights activists who traveled by car in the Jim Crow South, helping to organize and advocate for equal rights, especially for women.
Photo by Chaz D. Photography
Studio@620 has been one of the cultural gems of the region for decades. When I’ve described it to people from outside our area, I’ve said, “It’s just a concrete rectangle — and it can be whatever it needs to be for the moment.”
That is still true, and yet, under Erica Sutherlin, it feels elevated even in neutral. The last few times I’ve been there, it doesn’t feel like walking into a utilitarian space being something, it feels like walking into something.
Walking into Cadillac Crew felt like walking into something special.
This Studio@620 co-production with Tampa’s Powerstories Theatre runs through Nov. 16.
An Intimate Experience
The show was presented in the round, and a curated companion art exhibit The Unseen Thread, hangs on the walls around it — ambiently lit as part of the show experience. In between the art and the playing space is the audience — also ambiently lit as part of the show experience. Seating in the round, in an intimate space, sets the expectation for your attention. You are visible to the actors and three-fourths of your fellow audience members. Put your phone away and be present.
Now, while Cadillac Crew has your attention: playwright Tori Sampson has a history lesson for you, taught by characters embodying four distinct perspectives with sharp and witty dialogue. (“You just throw words in the air, hoping they catch logic before they drop,” for example.)
The play is an historical fiction inspired by real events from the Civil Rights Movement, in which Black women dare to ask “My Sacred America: when will you be ready for us?”
[Read more]Arts All Around!
The Gabber Newspaper covers live theater and art across South Pinellas. And, when we find something worth the drive, we cover art in the Tampa Bay and Sarasota areas.
(L-R) Marjorie Joseph is Abby, Andresia Moseley is Dee, Jai Shanae is Sarah, and Ivy Sunflower plays Rachel.
Photo by Chaz D. Photography
These “Ladies of the Movement” comprise a Cadillac Crew: an integrated group of Civil Rights activists who traveled by car in the Jim Crow South, helping to organize and advocate for equal rights, especially for women. These are fictional characters in an historical reality because aside from Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer, and a handful of others, many of the female leaders and laborers of the Movement have been largely forgotten.
Even though the characters themselves are amalgamations of influences and concepts, the actors have created multi-faceted, dynamic women. They sparkle like jewels, and shoutout to Costume Designer Jordan Jeffers for putting them each in a jewel tone evocative of their spirit.
A Cadillac Crew
Ivy Sunflower plays Rachel, idealistic and driven. Andresia Moseley is Dee, representing the slightly more conservative change-seeker. Marjorie Joseph is Abby, dedicated but ambitious. And Jai Shanae is Sarah, a woman whose life experience is different because she can pass for white. They have incredible chemistry and with Erica Sutherlin’s deft direction, always rise above the script’s pitfalls.
I wished the play could have been presented as one uninterrupted act, and there is a section by video towards the end meant to draw parallels between the past and present that felt unnecessary. But there is nothing that negates the powerful storytelling, committed acting, and immersive experience Studio@620 and Powerstories Theatre have accomplished with Cadillac Crew.
It is an evening well-spent, melding visual art, performing art, and history into something that will stay with you long after you leave that concrete rectangle.
See Cadillac Crew
Studio@620, 620 1st Ave. S., St. Petersburg. Thurs., Nov. 13-Sat., Nov. 15, 7:30 p.m.; and Sun., Nov. 16, 3 p.m. $25-40. thestudioat620.org, 727-895-6620.
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