Jonathan Norton

Good Friday. The New Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church's Seven Last Words service is in full swing. But outside on the church parking lot another resurrection story is taking shape. Sis, the Vice President of Usher Board Number One and her protégé Pickles, find themselves in a battle royale of romantic quagmires. This joyful new comedy introduces theater audiences to the world of Church Usher Board culture and celebrates same gender loving church folks, and the power and joy of being your authentic self. These are the announcements. Let us govern ourselves accordingly.

In Cake Ladies, the Scott County Community Playhouse is the pride of Cedar Oak, Texas, a city recovering from the second largest drug-fueled HIV outbreak ever to hit small town America. With the launch of their first ever “AidsFest!” it seems the town is finally turning a corner for the better. When the COVID-19 pandemic shuts down the playhouse production of Angels in America, the loss is a devastating blow to a city desperately looking to mend. That’s when best friends LeAnne and Tweedy-Bird – affectionately known as “the cake ladies” – leap into action to make Angels soar again in their home town. However to do so they must confront Cedar Oaks dark past and their own carefully buried secrets.

Growing up in a candy house sounds like every kid’s dream. But for 12-year-old Jon-Jon, helping his father run Paw Paw’s Candy Tree out of their run-down one-bedroom apartment isn’t quite a dream come true. As their neighborhood sees a surge of violence fueled by epidemic drug use and increasing racial tensions, the business begins to fail and danger looms immediately outside Jon-Jon’s front door. Oh, and then there’s the looming threat of Vacation Bible School. Worst summer ever! penny candy follows one family as they seek to balance their responsibilities to their community and to one another.

“My Tidy List of Terrors” is a coming of age tale set against the backdrop of the Atlanta Child Murders.
Atlanta, GA 1980. Ishmael Johnson was taught in church that all your sins fall on you when you turn twelve, and you can't automatically go to heaven when you die. And when his cousin is murdered, Ishmael fears that he might be next. But the only thing standing between Ishmael and the baptismal waters is his mother, Vara. Determined to save her son's life, Vara fights to win Ishmael a different kind of salvation. Vara believes she’s found a refuge for Ishmael when she takes a job as a live-in maid for a wealthy family in Collier Heights, the first African American suburb in the nation. But their welcome is jeopardized when Ishmael reveals more about himself than he should. Mother and son battle to navigate the troubled waters from boy to man.

1963. Jackson, Mississippi. Robert-Earl Monroe wants Civil Rights Activist Medgar Evers off his once quiet street. But his plans are jeopardized when his sixteen year-old daughter, Robbie, returns home from jail, newly politicized and eager to stand on the front lines of the Movement. Act Two jumps back in time to 1959, to the last time Medgar Evers set foot in the Monroe household for Robbie's 13th birthday ambush....errrrrrr party. Battle lines are drawn - daughter against father, husband against wife, sister against sister, and neighbor against neighbor. "Mississippi Goddamn" examines the tensions and complications within families and among neighbors in the years leading up to the 1963 assassination of Medgar Evers. Set against the backdrop and changing times of Civil Rights era Mississippi.