Pittsburgh native Wali Jamal Abdullah to serve at actor-in-residence at Marietta College
Three-day stay highlighted by performance on February 4th
Marietta, Ohio (01/23/2023) — Wali Jamal Abdullah, a Pittsburgh native and actor/playwright with History's Flipside Productions, will be in residence at Marietta College from February 3rd-5th.
Abdullah will perform August Wilson's autobiographical one-man play, "How I Learned What I Learned," while also conducting an acting workshop with students and members of the local theatre community.
"I am thrilled that we are able to bring Wali to Marietta," said Melissa Grande, Marietta College Theatre Instructor. "This is a wonderful opportunity for people in this area to get to see August Wilson's work performed by one of the most-skilled Wilson actors in the country."
The College received a grant through the Arts Midwest's Grow, Invest, Gather (GIG) Fund to bring Abdullah to campus for three days.
Abdullah is a former Pittsburgh Post-Gazette "Performer of the Year" and is the only actor in the world to have performed in all of August Wilson's 10 American Century Cycle plays and "How I Learned What I Learned."
The performance will be at 8:00 p.m., Saturday, February 4th, in Marietta College's Friederich Theater. The performance is free and open to the public.
Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for his plays and was nominated for three more. Additionally, his works were nominated for and won multiple Tony and Drama Desk awards, and his adaptations of plays for television and film were nominated for Emmy and Academy Awards.
Located in Marietta, Ohio, at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, Marietta College is a four-year liberal arts college. Tracing its roots to the Muskingum Academy back in 1797, the College was officially chartered in 1835. Today Marietta College serves a body of 1,200 full-time students. The College offers more than 50 majors and is consistently ranked as one of the top regional comprehensive colleges by U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review, as well as one of the nation's best by Forbes.com. Marietta was selected seventh in the nation according to the Brookings Institution's rankings of colleges by their highest value added, regardless of major.
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