Kate's Sisters by Maisha Baton

Kate's Sisters

Kate's Sister is a two act,
full-length play for five actors that tells the story of a black family in the early years of the ‘American West’. Among the many stories embedded in their tales are stories of buffalo soldiers, black cowboys, and the all-black communities that were settled in the 1880's and 1890's as part of the ‘exoduster’ movement’.

KATE’S SISTER has been developed and performed at Crossroads Theater Co. Of New Jersey; at the New Group Theater Co of Seattle; the Jubilee Theater of Fort Worth Texas; and in Detroit, MI. at the Detroit Repertory Theatre and the Juneteenth Legacy Theatre of Louisville, KY.

Critic’s Commentary:

New Mexico writer Maisha Baton’s Kate’s Sister is a solid, well-crafted drama about black pioneers in the Colorado territory in the 1880's. Although conventional in its basic framework, its one of the strongest new plays the Jubilee Theatre has staged. And a fitting one for its debut in a new downtown home. Kate’s Sister is content to remain primarily a family drama about who stays and who betrays. That doesn’t make it any less well-written or compelling, just more contained than it need be.
-- The Dallas Morning News, Nov. 13, 1992, Jerome Weeks, theater critic.

The happy fact is that Kate’s Sister is a brave and bonny new work brought to vibrant life by director Rudy Eastman and a fiercely energetic your cast.
-- Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Nov. 13, 1992, Perry Stewart

Baton, a playwright and poet, aspires here to reclaim a people’s unsung story. Actually, Kate’s Sister tells many stories, at times so vividly and eloquently that the Rep’s tiny stage seems to be holding 500 characters, no five. Through them we glimpse a vast panorama of the Old West: the vagaries of bull-roping, the strange fate of an all black-boon-town, and a plant whose mystical healing powers arouse a reverence in Papa befitting the holy grail.
-- The Detroit News, January 16, 1995, Reed Johnson, Theater critic.

For Production information contact Maisha Baton at mbaton@unm.edu.

Maisha Baton © Copyright 2007