Black Pearl Sings!
Written by Frank Higgins
Portland Center Stage
Directed by Bill Fennelly
Scenic Design by Andrew Boyce
Costume Design by Jeff Cone
Lighting Design by Thom Weaver
Photos by Patrick Weishampel
A Note from Bill I was thrilled to return to Portland Center Stage to direct Frank Higgins’s Black Pearl Sings!
I have long been drawn to stories about race in America. As a gay man, I have walked my own journey of otherness and discrimination in America, and while it is not the same as the experiences at the center of this play, it has shaped my interest in the stories I feel called to tell: stories about what it means to live in a nation that promises “liberty and justice for all” while so much inequality remains.
At the heart of the play is the evolving relationship between a Black woman and a White woman who come to recognize one another more deeply through African American folk songs and spirituals: music carried across generations, rooted in the American South, and reaching back toward ancestral traditions in West Africa.
For me, it was an opportunity to explore music as memory, inheritance, and a bridge between cultures. I wanted the production to honor music’s power to preserve identity, awaken memory, heal division, and reveal the humanity we share.
