Summer Nights and Fireflies

Summer Nights and Fireflies takes us to a tiny sawmill town in eastern Texas, the home of Zandra Richards. She’s a beautiful twenty-something Black Texan, brash and sassy with a dash of sweet honey to boot. But in her eyes you can see there is a story deeper then what is on the outside.

On a hot summer day in 1980, we find Zandra working where she has been her whole life, behind the bar. She’s the fifth generation to be born, raised, and then ultimately own the local bar, Richards. From the outside it appears that her life is currently on a high note. Her baby brother Tyrone has just come home from the Army and is attending college on a GI bill. The man she loves madly is a carpenter by the name of Sean Williams. And her bar is always littered with small town locals that have known everything about the Richards family for generations.

However, Zandra’s world is literally haunted by unresolved demons from her past. The first apparition is of her dead mother Clarice. A cruel and malicious woman, who when she was a live cared more about alcohol and her slew of revolving boyfriends then her children. At her best, Clarice forced her children to call her auntie rather than mom, at her worst she was verbally and physically abusive and nearly overdosed on several occasions in front of them. Zandra’s second ghost is Raymond, Clarice’s final boyfriend, a mean alcoholic with a violent streak driven by his controlling nature, and his ultimate downfall a taste for Zandra. Written by Bianca Sams, Summer Nights and Fireflies is directed by Tony Sias.

Featuring Kimberly Brown, Saidah Mitchell, Lawrence Charles Farmer, Jerome Anderson, Major Fisher, Johnathon Jackson, Tywon Cunningham, Janai’ Brown and a special cameo appearance by Tony Sias.

Written by Bianca Sams, Directed by Tony Sias

January 16 – January 18 2009