Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

One-Woman Play Tells Story of Civil Rights Activist Killed by KKK

By Lisha Arino | September 18, 2014 11:51am
 Actress Marietta Hedges in rehearsal for "Selma '65," a one-woman play about a white civil rights activist and an FBI informant who infiltrates the Ku Klux Klan. The show opens on Sept. 26, 2014 at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club on East Fourth Street.
'Selma '65' Rehearsal Photos
View Full Caption

EAST VILLAGE — Playwright Catherine Filloux had never heard of Viola Liuzzo, a white civil rights activist gunned down by the Ku Klux Klan, until she was commissioned to write a one-woman show about her that will premiere next week. 

The play, "Selma '65," follows Liuzzo's journey from a Detroit housewife to an activist who helped with a major civil rights march led by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama in 1965.

“I was shocked I didn’t know about it,” said Filloux, whose work typically tackles human rights and social justice issues.

The play, which will debut at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club on Sept. 26, focuses on Liuzzo's trip to Alabama to support the Selma to Montgomery Voting Rights March in 1965, Filloux said. The march drew speakers like King and helped pass the Voting Rights Act, which outlaws discriminatory election practices like literacy tests, later that year.

Liuzzo didn't live to see the act come to fruition. She was shot by the KKK while driving civil rights activists in Alabama on March 25, 1965.

"Selma '65" also focuses on Tommy Rowe, an FBI informant who infiltrated the KKK at about the same time.

“They have interconnected stories,” Filloux said.

Eleanor Holdridge will direct the 75-minute play and actress Marietta Hedges will play both Liuzzo and Rowe onstage, wearing costumes designed by Suttirat Larlarb, who worked on “Slumdog Millionaire,” Filloux said.

The play is more than just a history lesson, Filloux said. "Selma '65" touches on women's issues in the 1960s, as well as the FBI's handling of the civil rights movement.

The play’s 16-show run will feature panel discussions after some performances, with guest speakers including Gary May, who wrote “The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo,” and the Rev. Richard Leonard, who was one of 300 people who walked the entire way from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.

DNAinfo New York reporter Serena Solomon will take part in the one of the panels, interviewing Vishal Agraharkar, counsel for the Democracy Program at Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law.

Tickets are on sale now for the production’s limited run, which ends on Oct. 12. General admission tickets are $18 per person and $13 for students and seniors. The theater also offers 10 $10 tickets on a first-come, first-served basis for each show.