The Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC) is back with a celebration of Juneteenth with the return of the Wonders of the Wurlitzer concert series.
“From Free to Freedom: A Juneteenth Celebration” will take the stage on Wednesday, June 19 at 7 p.m., at the PPAC as part of the 6th Annual Juneteenth RI Festival.
The event is free and open to the public. It is written and directed by Ricardo Pitts-Wiley of Pawtucket’s Mixed Magic Theatre and features a cast of Rhode Island’s finest singers and actors, including Joyce Brayboy, Jeannie Carson, Matt Fraza, Autumn Jefferson, Donna Osborne, Corinne Pitts-Wiley, Habibah Quddus, Ondrea Robinson, Lauri Smalls, Kim Trusty, Aaliyah Turner, Diane Straker, Denyse Wilhelm and Gia Yarn.
The concert will accompany the PPAC’s rare and historic Mighty Wurlitzer. The instrument will be brought to life by House Organist Peter Edwin Krasinski and narrated by Jomo Peters and Bernadet V. Pitts-Wiley with a special appearance by Valerie Tutson of the Rhode Island Black Storytellers. The event is a collaboration between Juneteenth RI, Mixed Magic Theatre, Rhode Island Black Storytellers and Providence’s Department of Art, Culture and Tourism.
“Black History and the true stories of Africa’s people does not begin with the North American Slave Trade. It begins in the many great nations of Africa,” said Ricardo Pitts-Wiley, Director of From Free to Freedom and co-founder of Mixed Magic Theatre. “From Free to Freedom takes the audience on the journey of a people torn from the lives of family, friends and traditions in their homelands, through the horrors of bondage, to freedom.”
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) assisted a What’sUpNewp journalist with the reporting included in this story.
