Nina Simone: Four Women opens Feb. 13 at the KCRep Theatre

Nina Simone: Four Women // Photo courtesy of KCRep Theatre

The Kansas City Repertory Theatre celebrates its 60 year anniversary this year. The year of celebration will be kicked off with their first play of the 2024 season, Nina Simone: Four Women.

Nina Simone: Four Women opens Feb. 13, 2024 and runs through March 3, 2024 at the Kansas City Repertory Theatre on the Copaken Stage. It was written by playwright Christina Ham, and directed by Malkia Stampley. Tickets can be purchased here online, or at the box office.

The show will also tour out in the community from March 7 to March 17 at various locations including the American Jazz Museum. Director of Artistic Engagement, Morgana Wilborn, says of the community tour program, “We are working to make sure that we are lessening the barriers of access and engagement to the art. Where we have perhaps historically created barriers, we are stripping that away.”

This program allows for those that may not have otherwise had the chance to experience the play to attend for free at one of their community partner locations. Ticketing information for these events will be posted by the community partner host location. Every show will have a post show talkback, in which the community can engage directly with the cast and crew about topics raised within the play.

Simone was a singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, and civil rights activist from Tryon, North Carolina. She was born Feb. 21 of 1933 and died April 21 of 2003. She began playing piano by ear as young as three years old, and continued to foster her musical talent within the church. Her style spanned a variety of genres including blues, jazz, R&B, pop, and gospel.

The play is set in September of 1963, a day after the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The church had been a common meeting place for members of the civil rights movement, and was a frequent target of bomb threats. On a late Sunday morning, September 15, 1963, a bomb was placed in the back stairwell of the church, leaving more than 20 injured and killing four young girls.

The play tells the tale of Simone’s career shift from artist to artist/activist, declaring that “an artist’s responsibility is to reflect the times.” The shift in her career was catalyzed by the events of September 15, 1963. Simone responds to the tragedy by writing the anthem “Mississippi Goddamn.” Ham’s story follows Simone along as she writes the hit.

The play is shown through the stories of four different women, Auntie Sarah (Gabrielle Lott-Rogers), Sweet Thing (Brittney Mack), Sephronia (Toni Martin) and Peaches/Nina Simone (Alexis J. Roston). Within these four women, Ham uplifts the idea of who the four young girls could have grown up to be, had they been given the chance. These characters also serve as a representation of the characters that Simone portrays in her song “Four Women.”

Nina Simone: Four Women has been a known powerful work that has been produced several times. However, KCRep was given the chance to workshop the piece while working with the playwright back in December. Due to this, KCRep will be showing a slightly altered version that has yet to be seen by the public.

Artistic Director, Stuart Carden, says of the play, “The new work by playwright Christina Ham dramatically reveals the pivotal moments when Nina Simone exploded expectations and transformed from revered singer to a leading voice for all Americans during the civil rights movement.”