About the Play:

Crumbs from the Table of Joy has become a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy is a full-length drama by Lynn Nottage. An African-American widower and his two teenage daughters join the post-WWII northward migration to New York. The changes they encounter, from segregated to integrated; from rural to urban; and from widowed to re-married, forever alter their hopes, their values and their lives. Crumbs from the Table of Joy features a true to life American Black family and gives voice to a generation that has long been ignored, and continues to be even today.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy is a character driven family portrait set in 1950s Brooklyn. Recently widowed Godfrey Crump, and his daughters Ernestine, a 17-year-old and Ermina, 15 years old, move from Florida to Brooklyn for a better life. Not knowing how to parent, Godfrey turns to religion, and especially to a man called Father Divine, for answers. The girls absorb their new surroundings, but immerse themselves in the illusions of Hollywood instead of religion. But things change quickly when free-spirited Aunt Lily, Godfrey's sister-in-law, shows up from Harlem, having promised her sister that if anything ever happened, she'd look out for the girls. Lily, while fascinating to her nieces, stands for everything Godfrey dislikes: communism, sexual freedom and the fight against racial discrimination. As the racial and social issues of the late 1950s escalate, personal issues between Godfrey and Lily explode, prompting him to walk out. A few days later, he returns, with a new wife – a white, German refugee, Gerte. With Godfrey under the spell of Sweet Father Divine, Lily claiming to be a part of the new revolution, and quiet, stoic Gerte coming from the horrors of Germany, life in the household gets heated. Ultimately, Lily must leave, seeing as she's neither Godfrey's wife nor the girls' mother. Godfrey and Gerte keep the family together as best they can, but nothing lasts forever. Ernestine, about to graduate from high school, gets a job offer from her father, but it's not what she wants to do. Instead, as a young woman in the dawn of a new age, she sets off for Harlem in search of her spiritual mother, Lily, and all of the causes she supposedly stood for during the "revolution." Crumbs from the Table of Joy is a sharp and boisterous play from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Lynne Nottage about family, faith, and revolution.

Crumbs from the Table of Joy premiered in 1995 Off-Broadway at the Second Stage Theatre. Since then the play has been produced widely at professional theatres across the US. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been mounted by colleges and community theatres.

Cast: 4 female, 1 male

What people say:

"Imagine a pairing… between Tennessee Williams and Lorraine Hansberry, a memory play about a black family, a glass menagerie in the sun… Crumbs from the Table of Joy [is] a small window into the past, and this almost voyeuristic glimpse is worth attention." — New York Post

"Lynn Nottage has packed so much life, love and history into her panoramic memory play Crumbs From the Table of Joy that her use of the word 'crumbs' almost seems misguided. No matter how pain-filled and obstacle-ridden this tale of the coming-of-age of an adolescent African-American girl in 1950s Brooklyn might be, what drives this play is the pervasive sense of life as a great and exhilarating feast – a cornucopia of passion, imagination, knowledge, experience and yes, confusion, too." — Chicago Sun Times

"In this beautifully written coming-of-age tale, Lynn Nottage serves up a feast for the ears, eyes and soul. Her lovely, vividly detailed memory play centers on the Crump family and slips easily between fantasy and reality – expressing harsh truths with humor and compassion that allows room for hope." — Daily Herald

About the Playwright:

Lynn Nottage is an African-American playwright and screenwriter whose work often deals with the lives of African Americans and women. She is a graduate of Brown University and the Yale School of Drama, and is also an Associate Professor in the Theatre Department at Columbia School of the Arts. Her plays have been produced widely in the United States and throughout the world. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Ruined and for Sweat, making her the first woman to win the prestigious award twice.