Free Student Matinees Offered for Paradise Blue & Our Lady of 121st Street

Signature Theatre will offer free student matinees of Dominique Morisseau's Paradise Blue and Stephen Adly Guirgis's Our Lady of 121st Street this month.

The student matinee performance of Paradise Blue will take place on Wednesday, May 16 at 1pm. Our Lady of 121st Street will offer free student performances on Wednesdays, May 23 and 30 at 1pm. The initiative, launched this past fall, is sponsored by Delta Air Lines.

Paradise Blue is described as follows: "In 1949, Detroit's Blackbottom neighborhood is gentrifying. Blue, a troubled trumpeter and the owner of Paradise Club, is torn between remaining in Blackbottom with his loyal lover Pumpkin and leaving behind a traumatic past. But when the arrival of a mysterious woman stirs up tensions, the fate of Paradise Club hangs in the balance." The show had its world premiere at the Williamstown Theatre Festival during its 2015 season.

Directed by Phylicia Rashad in her New York directorial debut, Our Lady of 121st Street is described as follows: "After the death of the beloved Sister Rose, a group of her former students return to their Harlem neighborhood to pay respects. But at the funeral home, there's a problem — her dead body has been stolen. An irreverently brash and insightful dark comedy, Stephen Adly Guirgis's Our Lady of 121st Street paints a vivid comic portrait of what happens when old friends meet old wounds and how old habits die hard."