The SonEdna Mid- Morning Matinee Reading Series kicks off with Family Story Hour at the Forsyth County Public Library Malloy/Jordan East Winston Heritage Center, on Wednesday, July 31, 2013, featuring the stellar celebrity duo, “Sesame Street” icon Roscoe Orman and Pauletta Pearson-Washington, Orman’s co-star in the NBTF drama Power Play by Lorey Hayes. Orman, best known for playing Gordon on “Sesame Street” and spokesperson for AudibleKids.com, will delight young audiences, reading aloud from his premiere children’s book, Ricky and Mobo, a modern fable about a boy and his horse. Pearson-Washington will follow with an interactive reading of Ellington is Not A Street by literary icon Ntozake Shange, author of the Broadway classic for colored girls who considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. A delightful double bill for young and old, one and all! The Forsyth County Public Library Malloy/Jordan East Winston Heritage Center is located at 1110 East Seventh St.,Winston-Salem, NC 27101. Click here for a map and directions.
11:00AM – 12:30PM

Each SonEdna Mid- Morning Matinee reading will be followed by an intimate Q&A and a book signing. All of the events will be presented at Forsyth County Public Library sites in Winston-Salem and all are free to NBTF patrons and the public.

SonEdna was founded by Myrna Colley-Lee in 2006 to bring together writers from around the country, allowing them to interact with each other, the public, and students in a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship. SonEdna believes that people empowered through the literary arts discern, decide, and design with greater authority, clarity, understanding, and compassion.

In 2011, SonEdna made its National Black Theatre Festival debut with the dramatic reading of Ifa Bayeza’s Charleston Olio, which was adapted from her novel, “Some Sing, Some Cry” and featured Phylicia Rashad and National Black Theatre Festival former Co-Chair Hattie Winston.

Other SonEdna programs include salons, student writing workshops, school presentations, peer critical review for emerging writers, retreats and residencies for established writers, literary showcases.

For more information please contact SonEdna Director Benjamen Douglas at 662.625.6178.

National Black Theatre Festival
NBTF is the international outreach program of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, founded by the late Larry Leon Hamlin in 1979. The Festival, also founded by Hamlin, has been held biennially since 1989. The event attracts thousands of national and international patrons, theatre professionals and scholars to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was named one of the Top 100 events in North America by the American Business Association. This is the only national black theater festival in the country offering six consecutive days of professional theater, film, poetry, workshops, seminars and shopping.

For additional information and a schedule of events, call the festival office at (336) 723-2266, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, or visit www.nbtf.org online.