Playwright, actor, and Louisiana Native Layon Gray is bringing his widely popular and inspirational play Black Angels Over Tuskegee to Ruston at the Dixie for the first time on Saturday, January 20, 2024. Gray has made a name for himself in the Los Angeles and New York City theatre communities, where he's spent more than two decades writing, directing, and developing stage plays and films that reflect a wide array of cultural movements. Gray has earned more than 60 nominations and awards for his works, including the NAACP Award for Best Ensemble and the MATCH-LIFE Artist of the Year Award
Black Angels Over Tuskegee is the story of the Tuskegee Airmen told in narrative of six men embarking upon a journey to become pilots in the United States Army Air Forces.
The play goes beyond the headlines of the popular stories of the Tuskegee Airmen and exposes the men who exhibited the courage to excel, in spite of all the overwhelming odds against them. The play follows the collective struggle of the first African American aviators in the United States Army Air Forces as they overcame Jim Crow-era injustices with intelligence, patriotism, and brotherhood as they worked towards their dreams of an inclusive and fair society.
Vibrantly energetic and emotionally captivating, the acclaimed drama Black Angels Over Tuskegee arrives in Ruston in January. One of the longest-running productions Off-Broadway, this award-winning, historical docudrama will take you on a journey through a tumultuous era of racial segregation and Jim Crow idealism in twentieth-century American history. Inspired by true events, Black Angels Over Tuskegee movingly illustrates how the men unite in brotherhood to achieve a communal vision.
Tickets are available now at www.dixiecenter.org