Russell Jordan performs at La MaMa playwright showcase

Russell Jordan on February 26, 2016 performed in a reading of Rachel Mary Cox’s BRUISED AND CONFUSED, one of the new works presented at La Mama Experimental Theater Club as part of its La MaMa Umbria International Playwrights Readings showcase.

BRUISED AND CONFUSED examines the lives of partners Naima (Chandra Thomas) and Jules (Hannah Beck) and the stress placed on their already strained relationship, when their long-time friend Malik (Edward O’Blenis) is shot and killed by a police officer. The situation is further complicated when they learn Jules’ cousin is the officer who fired the fatal shot. Enter Jules’s former partner (and one-time participant in a sexual tryst with Jules and Naima), Jerome (Russell Jordan), who has appeared on the scene to seek justice for Malik, but stirring up old feelings with Naima in the process.

Lindsay Perry, Chuck Blasius, Pierce Forsythe, Olia Toporovsky, Lawryn LaCroix, and Matthew Mark Meyer round out the ensemble, with Dana Boll reading stage directions.  

Top: Playwright Rachel Mary Cox (l.) in advance of rehearsal of the reading her play BRUISED AND CONFUSED. Bottom: The cast at La Mama just after the reading.

Russell days earlier performed at La Mama in LANGSTON HUGHES IN HARLEM as part of their “Poetry Electric” series.