Metrostage at the lyceum Presents
A Tribute to Athol Fugard with a reading of
The Island
Featuring Doug Brown and Bill Grimmette
Directed by Eric Ruffin
Wednesday, April 16, 2025, at 7 PM
MetroStage presents The Island, an iconic play, honoring Athol Fugard. Join us as we pay tribute to the greatest South African playwright and to MetroStage’s history and their commitment to producing his work.
It is the early 1970’s. John and Winston are two political prisoners in apartheid South Africa. The setting is Robben Island off the coast but within sight of their homeland. An iconic play that Athol Fugard devised with John Kani and Winston Ntshona, that MetroStage produced in both 1990 and 2015.
Since Mr. Fugard died this past March, MetroStage is honored to pay tribute to his body of work and present a reading of this extraordinary play. By depicting these political prisoners, their bond, and their commitment to telling the classic story of “Antigone” for their fellow prisoners, Fugard has created a dramatic and historic masterpiece. As MetroStage director Thomas W. Jones II described, the play depicts “themes of solidarity, endurance, perseverance (that) are timeless”, and a “celebration of human dignity and freedom in the face of insurmountable oppression.”
"This reflects a very important part of MetroStage’s history since we produced many of Mr. Fugard’s plays over the last 30 years. We are proud to pay tribute to his work and the tremendous contribution he made during the years of apartheid and beyond with a reading of The Island, featuring two of MetroStage’s favorite actors who have performed in his plays for MetroStage productions." Carolyn Griffin, Producing Artistic Director
The Lyceum, 201 S Washington Street, Alexandria. Virginia
Street Parking And The Closest Parking Garage At 111 S. Pitt St. (2 ½ Blocks From The Lyceum)
BIOS
Athol Fugard
Athol Fugard (1932-2025) was an internationally acclaimed South African playwright whose best-known work dealt with the political and social upheaval of the apartheid system in South Africa. He was educated at the University of Cape Town. His plays include Blood Knot, “Master Harold”...and the Boys, The Captain’s Tiger, Valley Song, My Children! My Africa!, A Lesson from Aloes, Boesman and Lena, The Island and the award-winning Sizwe Banzi is Dead. Mr. Fugard received six honorary degrees from esteemed colleges and was an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Doug Brown
Doug Brown (Winston) has appeared as Winston in the two productions of The Island at MetroStage, in the 1990-91 season and in 2015. Other productions at MetroStage include Mooi Street Moves (Stix Letsebe) in 1993 by another South African playwright Paul Slabolepszy, the world premiere of Uprising (Charlie Pick, 2015), Gin Game (Weller Martin, 2017), and Painted Rocks at Revolver Creek (Nukain, another Athol Fugard play in 2018). Other favorite roles include Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom (Levi) Studio Theatre; Jitney (Turnbo) Ford’s Theatre; Fuddy Meers (Millet) Woolly Mammoth; Piano Lesson (Doaker) Actors’ Theatre of Louisville; The Colored Museum (Miss Roj) Studio Theatre; Fences (Bono) Ford’s Theatre; Radio Golf (Sterling Johnson) Milwaukee Rep.
Bill Grimmette
Bill Grimmette (John) appeared in MetroStage’s production of Athol Fugard’s Blood Knot in 1987 as Zachariah and received a Helen Hayes nomination for Lead Actor. This was the first production in MetroStage’s first theatre in a 65 seat storefront in Alexandria. He also performed in Sizwe Banzi is Dead, another Fugard play, at MetroStage in 2015. Bill retired from the stage in 2018 after 50 years performing. His final performance was as Hoke in Driving Miss Daisy with Karen Grassley from Little House on the Prairie. Other roles include Lear in King Lear (Atlas Theater 2018); Othello in Othello, (Virginia Shakespeare Festival 1994); Death and the Kings Horsemen (Elasin Oba, Ira Aldridge Theater Howard Univ. 1993); and Ghosts (Engstrand at Milwaukee Rep 1996). In addition, Bill has performed across the country and internationally as a Motivational Storyteller. His stories were framed in the guise of the African Griot, venerating the awesome legitimacy of the history and culture of AfrAmericans*.
Eric Ruffin
Eric Ruffin (Director) is the Coordinator of the Acting Program at Howard University. His directing credits include Mary Seacole and Fabulation for Mosaic Th, Stirring the Waters at The Reach (Kennedy Center), Mountaintop and A Raisin in the Sun for Lyric Rep, Three Cheers for Grace for Young Playwrights Theatre, Sarafina! at Kennedy Center, Black Nativity for Theater Alliance (3 Helen Hayes Awards including Best Musical), and 2-2 Tango at Studio Th. He has also directed Radio Golf, Hurt Village, Venus, Passing Strange, and Cut Flowers in the Al Freedman and Ira Aldridge Theatres at Howard University. Ruffin holds a BFA from Howard University and an MFA from Rutgers University. He is a Stage Directors and Choreographers Associate, and former: Drama League Directing Fellow, Folger Theatre Acting Fellow, NY Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect and Princess Grace Grant recipient. He was recently commissioned by Studio Th to develop the “Port Chicago 50” story and serves on Woolly Mammoth Theatre’s Board. the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Both John Kani and Winston Ntshona received the Tony Award for Best Perf by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play in 1975. The Island also received nominations for Best Direction and Best Play. The poster is from a production at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg.
From an interview in 2015 in the Gazette Packet:
“Producing Artistic Director Carolyn Griffin said the show touches on everything important in a dramatic work. “It is highly political since it depicts the plight of the political prisoner in South Africa under apartheid law,” she said. “At the same time it is timely, timeless and universal in that there will always be highly charged political situations in parts of the world where there is oppression and incarceration.” She added, “It is a psychological study of incarceration, isolation, bonding under the most challenging circumstances — man’s inhumanity to man — and ultimately the triumph of the human spirit. It makes a political statement but also addresses the most fundamental human needs, hopes and desires for freedom, community, and family.”
Fugard’s use of the Greek story of ‘Antigone’ is a metaphor used to depict the political protest of the black South Africans in apartheid South Africa who fought the state and were imprisoned on Robben Island, the most famous being Nelson Mandela. “So the power of the play, the statement it is making and the ingenuous use of the play within a play ‘Antigone,’ which serves as a symbol of the individual’s resistance to the state, a situation analogous to the prisoners incarcerated for protesting the apartheid law at the time, makes ‘The Island’ a masterpiece of dramatic storytelling which will live with the audience well beyond the close of the play,” said Griffin.
