'Mixed: One Woman Show' features actress, Maya Lilly, Friday
Multicultural Student Services Fun Night will feature actress Maya Lilly performing her play, "Mixed: A One Woman Show," Friday, Feb. 6. Admission is free.
Fun Night will begin at 7 p.m. in O'Shaughnessy Educational Center auditorium. Following the performance, the event will continue with food and the music of DJ Enferno from 9 to 11 p.m. in Scooter's.
Maya Lilly
The play "has been described as the first truly multicultural portrayal of Americans," says Lilly's Web site. "After centuries of misunderstanding, these stories make the audience understand what it is to belong to many cultures and, simultaneously, to none." It is adapted from interviews and workshops across the country.
Lilly, a person of multiracial roots in Germany, Ireland, Cuba, Pakistan, Syria, China and Jamaica, was born and raised in New York City where, at the age of 9, she was accepted into the School for Creative and Performing Arts.
By ninth grade, Lilly had performed in more than 30 school productions, a professional Equity show at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and had done commercials, industrials, modeling and voiceovers. She also began teaching summer classes in theater arts. While Lilly was in high school, her family relocated to Miami where she attended New World School of the Arts.
After graduation, Lilly was one of seven women accepted into an acting class of 20 at The Juilliard School in New York City, where she had her first awakening to a global perspective. She was elected president of the Juilliard Greens, which fostered her activism for the environment and for social and racial justice. In 2002, she received the Udall Congressional Award for her work using theater as social activism.
Fun Night is co-sponsored by Multicultural Student Services and STAR.
