Lyric Rep will stage ‘FreeMan in Paris’ as its interACT show

LOGAN – The Lyric Repertory Company has announced the final offering of their 2022 season.

The LRC will stage playwright Herb Newsome’s one-man show FreeMan in Paris as their interACT show.

The interACT show — a work-in-progress, audience response show – debuted during the LRC’s 2021 season.

“The interACT show was designed as an opportunity to showcase the original work of some of our company members,” says Richie Call, the company’s artistic director. “For the second year in a row, interACT will feature a new play in process. We invite our audience members to ‘interact’ with the show’s creator, providing feedback and suggestions by discussing their reactions to the show.”

Call adds that interAct: FreeMan in Paris will be presented in the experimental Blacked Box Theatre in the Cache Fine Arts Center on the Utah State University campus. Those performances are slated for 7:30 p.m. on July 14 and 28, with matinee performances scheduled on July 15, 20 and 22.

Newsome is a playwright, director and actor originally from New York City and now residing in Los Angeles.

As an actor, his theater credits include A Raisin in the Sun, The Meeting, News to Me, Macbeth, Richard III and five August Wilson plays (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Fences, Jitney, The Piano Lesson and Radio Golf).

As a director, Newsome has guided productions for the New York International Fringe Festival; the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, the National Black Theater, the Hollywood Fringe Festival, the Kuntu Repertory Company, the New Horizons Theater and National Arts Festival in South Africa.

As a playwright, Newsome has written a full-length play, Revenge of a King, which is a hip-hop musical based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

He has also written and performed in three solo shows (In Devil’s Heaven, Break It Down and FreeMan in Paris).

Call explains that FreeMan in Paris answers the question: ‘What ever happened to Carter Freeman?”

“This one-man show tells the story of a group of Black jazz musicians and their search for freedom in America,” Call adds. “Through testimonials from those who knew Freeman and vivid flashbacks, we are transported back to the be-bop era of jazz, where the music was vibrant and the country was gearing up for a major change.”

Other offerings from the Lyric Repertory Company this summer will be A Fox on the Fairway, directed by Richie Call, from June 17 to July 29; the Disney musical Freaky Friday, directed by Jason Spelbring, from June 24 to July 30; Fences, directed by Summer G. Session, from July 1 to July 29; Into the Breeches, directed by Adrianne Moore, from July 8 to July 30; and the 4th Annual Vosco Call Sportlight Concert on July 19 and 26.

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