Wilson to life at Open Stage and to his fine cast who deliver a play that is entertaining and informative. As Ma Rainey said: “You don’t sing to feel better, you sing to understand life. This would be an empty world without the blues. I try to fill it up.”

About 100 years ago, Rainey, known as “the mother of the blues,” was in the middle of a thriving career as a blues singer. In a five-year period in the 1920s, she made more than 100 re­cordings. The play takes place during that period. The title refers...

Whats magnificent about the 10 plays is the collective line that runs through them, says Santiago-Hudson, a co-star of Gem of the Ocean and a director of several Wilson works. But I can put up any one of those plays by itself and blow your mind! The...

The event at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel will be hosted by Tony Award-winning Broadway star Joanna Gleason (last seen at Huntington in Broadway-bound “Sons of the Prophet”). Yvette Freeman, star of the Huntington’s upcoming production of “Ma Rainey’s...

In the play, a quartet of blues musicians gather in a run-down Chicago studio waiting for Ma Rainey to arrive to record new sides of her old favorites. The cast also includes Joniece Abbot-Pratt (Dussie Mae), Corey Allen (Sylvester), Jason Bowen...

Pridgett was one tough bitch. Known professionally as Ma Rainey, she was dubbed the Mother of the Blues an important voice in African-American culture, now largely forgotten. Perhaps Ma's reputation as a loud, demanding, egomaniacal, cussing,...