Replacement Announced for Tonya Pinkins in Mother Courage and Her Children

Classic Stage Company has announced that Kecia Lewis will assume the title role in Mother Courage and Her Children following Tony Award winner Tonya Pinkins' early exit from the production. Pinkins played her final performance on January 3.

Lewis begins performances this Friday, January 8. CSC has canceled the January 5-7 performances to allow for rehearsal time, and the show will run through January 24 as originally scheduled.

Lewis made her Broadway debut at 18 as Effie in the original Broadway company of Dreamgirls. She went on to originate the role of Asaka, Mother of the Earth, in Once on This Island, performed additional roles on Broadway in Big River, Ain't Misbehavin, and Gospel at Colonus, and earned a Drama Desk Nomination for her work in Dessa Rose at Lincoln Center Theatre. She also originated the roles of Trix and Ida Mae in the Broadway productions of The Drowsy Chaperone and Leap of Faith, respectively, and performed the role of Mama Morton in Chicago. Most recently, Lewis starred as The Fairy Godmother in the First National Tour of Cinderella. On television, she can be seen on Law & Order SVU, Limitless, and the upcoming season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

Lewis joins a cast featuring Joshua Boone, Curtiss Cook Jr., Jamil A. C. Mangan, Kevin Mambo, Jacob Ming-Trent, Geoffrey Owens, Michael Potts, Deandre Sevon, Mirirai Sithole, and Zenzi Williams.

Along with direction by Kulick, CSC's staging of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children features original music by Tony Award winner Duncan Sheik, set design by Tony Straiges, costume design by Toni-Leslie James, lighting design by Justin Townsend, and sound design by Matt Stine. In the play, Mother Courage follows one luckless army after another across a war-torn world in her canteen wagon, which she'll do anything to hang on to.

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