Carolyn Nur Wistrand
she, her, hers
New Orleans, LA
Carolyn Nur Wistrand
[contact]
Biography

Her plays include Ida B. ‘N The Lynching Tree (Savannah Black Heritage Festival, February 2022, Dillard University & Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History)Magdalena’s Crossing (Women's International Playwriting Conference, Montreal, Canada, 2022, Teatro Bravo, Bilingual Center for the Arts, ATHE Jane Chambers Feminist Playwriting Award 2019 Honoree, Bridge Initiatives, Echo Theatre, Wordsmyth Theatre, and The Negro Ensemble Company; Watchwomen, (World Aids Day, Savannah State University, 2021) Rising (Mario-Fratti-Fred Newman International Political Playwriting Award, Castillo Theatre); 9 Steps from St. Ann Street (New Perspectives Theatre); When Marie Took the Power (Savannah Black Heritage Festival); She Danced With A Red Fish (Inkslinger National Playwriting Award, Southeastern Louisiana University & Dillard University, New Orleans); Tic Toc (2020 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival); Dirt Bleeds (2019 Tennessee Williams Literary Festival); Second Coming (Love Creek, Open Eye & Playwrights Preview Productions); Tahirih, University of Michigan-Flint, Masonic Temple, Detroit.  Her plays are published with Africa World Press, Brooklyn Publishers, One Act Play Depot, Theatre Unbound, Contemporary Drama Service, Coachella Review, Drama Notebook, and Carmel Publishers in Chandigarh, India. She is a member of the Dramatists Guild, ICWP, a recipient of a MCACA/NEA Award and a NEH Summer Fellowship (Enhancing the Teaching of Ancient Greek Drama at Historically Black Colleges and Universities). Carolyn Nur is an Assistant Professor of English and Drama at Dillard University in New Orleans, the oldest HBCU in Louisiana.  

Plays

SHE DANCED WITH A RED FISH
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand

http://www.dillard.edu/dillard-newsroom/campus-news/red-fish.php

About She Danced With A Red Fish… From the annals of New Orleans’ unique mythology comes a newly imagined story capturing Marie Laveau as a young woman. The play follows Marie as she is transformed from a Catholic bride to a participant in African rituals in the Pre-Civil War French Quarter. When the Saint-Domingue priestess, Sanité Dédé, performs a midnight ritual cleansing in Marie’s cottage on St. Ann Street, the unexpected return of her husband, Jacque Paris, disrupts the ceremony, ultimately leading to Marie’s mystic awakening through African traditions. Filled with 19th century legendary Black Creole’s- the mysterious Jacque Paris, Vodou priestess Sanité Dedé, Conjure man Dr. John, quadroon Colette Delacroix, crippled laundress Mary Earle, and runaway slave Bras Coupé, the magic of the Vieux Carré is brought to life in this wickedly delicious tale of female empowerment, love, and lust. Winner of the Insklinger National Playwriting Competition.

Cast:
6 W 3 M
IDA B. 'N THE LYNCHING TREE
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand

https://www.amazon.com/Ida-B-Lynching-Tree-History/dp/1723940615

Ida B. ‘n the Lynching Tree is based on the foremost African American female journalist of the 19th century, Miss Ida B. Wells. A founding member of the NAACP, Ida B. Wells was characterized as courageous, fearless, and militant. The play moves swiftly through major events in the life of Miss Ida B. Wells, from her birth on July 16, 1862 in Holly Springs, Mississippi, to the Memphis lynchings of March 9, 1892, which resulted in her lifelong crusade against lynching and inequities, brought about by Jim Crow laws in the Deep South.

Cast:
8 W, 6 M, Multiple Roles
MAGDALENA'S CROSSING
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand

http://wordsmyththeater.org/november-reading-magdalenas-crossing-carolyn-nur-wistrand/

Cast:
(5W, 3 M) This modern tale of life on the Southwest border is set between El Paso, Texas and Juárez, Mexico. The story centers on Magdalena, a young woman from the colonias in Juárez, who flees Mexico illegally to escape spousal abuse. Desperate to survive without documentation and limited English skills, Magdalena finds work in a seedy bar in downtown El Paso, where Dalia, the matron, serves as her employer, teacher, and pimp. When Jamal, an African American solider, stationed at Fort Bliss enters the lounge, his presence unravels Magdalena’s guarded secret. A chorus of Latina women serve as the collective conscious as the divergent cultures begin to collide. Magdalena’s Crossing shifts between one young woman’s past in Juárez and present in El Paso ultimately leading to murder while the brutality of our present day immigration crisis looms in the background.
WATCHWOMEN
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand

Anodiwa, a South African nursing student, facing deportation from the United States, is detained in a Maximum Women’s Detention Center where events leading up to the confiscation of her VISA unravel as three dead South African girls haunt her prison cell. Exploring health issues facing women in the United States and the border of the Republic of Botswana and South Africa, WATCHWOMEN gives voice to the alarming vulnerability of young women to HIV/AIDS throughout the globe. Commissioned for WORLD AIDS DAY by Savannah State University, Savannah, Georgia.

Cast:
5 W, 3 M, Diverse Casting, Multiple Roles
9 Steps from St. Ann Street
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand with a forward by Elena Araoz

When her daughter disappears, a mysterious woman must come to terms with her decision to embrace African traditions in antebellum New Orleans.  http://oneactplays.net/9Steps.html

Cast:
4 W, 1 M Published by One Act Play Depot, Canada February 2015
The Marie Plays Part 1: WHEN MARIE TOOK THE POWER
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand
Cast:
4 W, 2 M
MEAN MOLLY
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand

https://www.amazon.com/Mean-Molly-African-Folk-South-ebook/dp/B07H785MWNWhen Watah Mocasin goes fishing in a slave burial ground, the spirit of Mean Molly, a young West African woman that died in Massah George’s smokehouse, is unleashed upon the newly freed men and women in the low country of South Carolina during the first year of Reconstruction. Guided by the Ijebu warrior, Obonto, the people work collectively to return her trust to the Ancestor House.

“Mean Molly combines good writing, wonderful characters, conflict, tension, and purpose. Each character has his or her own voice. The story is fresh and invigorating. We pay attention to them. They represent a wonderful cross section of a culture as they move toward their own salvation.” –Leslie Lee, Obie winning, Tony nominated playwright.

Cast:
2W 8M, Diverse Casting
WATCHWOMEN
by Carolyn Nur Wistrand

SYNOPSIS 

When a South African nursing student is falsely accused of stealing medicine from an American clinic, she is detained in a Maximum Women’s Detention Center where events leading up to the confiscation of her VISA unravel as three young Southern African girls haunt her prison cell. Exploring health issues facing women in the United States and the border between the Republic of Botswana and South Africa, WATCHWOMEN gives voice to the alarming vulnerability of young women to HIV/AIDS.

Cast:
*Multiple roles for 3 men and 6 women/Diverse Casting CHARACTERS ANODIWA DIKO South African Nursing student, studying in America BIG BERTHA American Correction Officer CHILD BRIDES Funani, Ifu, Icici, Botswanian Teenagers JUDGE TALISON Immigration Judge MS. HOPKINS U. S. Attorney NATASHA American Escort NURSE American nurse/African nurse VICKY HILL American television journalist TENDI South African Truck Driver JACOB South African Truck Driver

Successes

http://tennesseewilliams.net/speaker/wistrand-carolyn-nur/

STAGED READING OF TIC TOC by Carolyn Nur Wistrand, Tennessee Williams LIterary Festival, New Orleans. March 28, 2020 @ 2:30 PM. Hotel Monteleone. 

 

STAGED READING OF DIRT BLEEDS AT TENNESSEE WILLIAMS LITERARY FESTIVAL IN NEW ORLEANS

DIRT BLEEDS by Carolyn Nur Wistrand will be presented in concert with THE PURIFICATION by Tennessee Williams at the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival in New Orleans March 31, 2019. 

IDA B 'N THE LYNCHING TREE

 DILLARD UNIVERSITY THEATRE PROGRAM PRESENTS NEW PLAY ON MISS IDA B. WELLS’ CRUSADE AGAINST LYNCHING FOR BLACK HISTORY MONTH

IDA B 'N THE LYNCHING TREE written by Carolyn Nur Wistrand runs Feb. 15-24, 2019 in the Cook Theatre, Dillard University, New Orleans, Louisiana.

http://https://www.amazon.com/dp/1723940615

The 2018 edition of the play, Ida B. 'n the Lynching Tree (based on the early lynching crusade of Ida B. Wells) by Carolyn Nur Wistrand has just been published by One Act Play Depot in Canada and now available on Amazon.