Join us for the return of John Hardy as he tells the devastating story of a West-Texas man who goes to great lengths to achieve fatherhood. Hardy plays 16 different roles, taking the audience from Texas to Paris and back over the course of 30 years. Tickets $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

TWO SHOWS!

    Noon: Join us for this delightful opera for kids and families. An adaptation of the beloved Brothers Grimm fairy tale. FREE!

    6:30 PM: From contemporary hits to beloved standards to operatic masterpieces and Broadway musicals, the Tyler Young Artists Program has it all. Tickets: $15 advance & at the door.

CLARISSA MINNIE THOMPSON ALLEN

(1859 - 1941)

Educator, Author, and Activist

Fort Worth, Texas: the site of Thompson’s activist work. During her years in Texas, she served as an active member of the Colored Division of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union; an organization that endorsed the women’s suffrage movement and numerous progressive causes related to welfare and public health. Thompson spent the duration of her career and her adult life stressing the importance of education for women, particularly Black women. Through her teaching career, writing, and organizational ties, Thompson committed herself to ensuring that African American women would receive better opportunities than they had in the past.

    As a writer, Thompson authored short stories and poetry. She wrote fictional accounts based on the lives of actual wealthy Black families. The Boston Advocate serialized one of her best-known stories, Treading the Winepress; or, A Mountain of Misfortune in 1885 and 1886. Thompson also published her poetry and letters for African American newspapers in Texas under the pseudonym Minnie Myrtle. In depicting the struggles of her characters, Thompson found a way to both acknowledge and celebrate positive aspects of African American womanhood through her literary work.

MARIA LOUISE “MOLLY” BALDWIN

(1856 - 1922)

Educator, Civic Leader, and Activist

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Baldwin’s birthplace and the site of her groundbreaking work. She was hired to teach at the Agassiz school; a well-regarded public school attended by the children of Harvard University professors and many of the old Cambridge families. She was appointed principal in 1889, the first African American female principal in Massachusetts and the Northeast. In 1916, Baldwin was made master. She was one of only two women in the Cambridge school system and the only African American person (regardless of gender) in New England to hold such a position. Under her leadership, it became one of the best schools in the city. She introduced new methods of teaching mathematics and began art classes. Baldwin was the first to introduce the practice of hiring a school nurse. Her school was the only one in the city of Cambridge to establish an "open-air" classroom.