One Woman Show By Actress Burrows
by Dave Owens
Actress Vinie Burrows, who
holds the record for the
longest running off Broadway
one-woman show, will appear
at 8:15 p.m. Monday, April
15, in Dana Auditorium at
Guilford College.
Her visit to the campus -- to
meet with students as well as
to perform -- is an ititegral
part of Journey Into Blackness
II, a week-long program
sponsored by Brothers and
Sisters in Blackness.
BASIB's president, Eloise
Gray, explained that "Journey
II" is made "in an effort to
bridge that gap that need not
exist between blacks and
whites on the Guilford campus
and in the community.''
Cosponsoring Ms. Burrows'
visit are the Guilford College
Arts Series and the college's
"Being Human in the
Twentieth Century" course.
Tickets for the Burrows
program, expected to be
similar to her successful
one-woman show, "Walk
Together, Children," will be
available at the door.
Of "Walk Together, Children" a New York critic wrote:
"On stage there is only an
unpainted wooden stool, three
screens loosely hooked together, and Vinie Burrows, a
pretty black lady in a flowing
red dress.
"That's the inventory of
4Walk Together, Children' but
it adds up to more theater than
you are likely to find in six
other shows combined.
"The credit and the thanks
all go to Miss Burrows - for
her enormous talent in this
'black journey from auction
block to new nation time!' and
for her taste in selecting and
compiling the material from
black writing past and
present."
The topics she selected for
use in the show deal with
"what it means and how it
feels to be black in America."
A native of New York City
and a graduate of New York
University, Ms. Burrows
made her Broadway debut
with Helen Hayes and has
since performed in a number
of successful plays both on
and off Broadway, appearing
with Ossie Davis, Raymond
St. Jacques, Mary Martin,
Ertha Kitt and Godfrey
Cambridge.
Since beginning her career
as a solo artist in 1963 she has
Actress Vinie Burrows
created seven distinctly different one-woman shows for the
college and national theater
circuit.
Her "Walk Together, Children" opened in New York in
1968, causing Clive Barnes of
the New York Times to call her
"a magnificent performer"
and the New York Post to
describe her as "funny, gusty,
diverse and colorful, ironic,
apocalyptic."
Ms. Burrows then performed at the First Pan-African
Cultural Festival in Algiers,
did a TV special in Bucharest,
appeared before 10,000 people
in Stockholm and made
another TV special in
Amsterdam.
She was invited to return to
Holland and, during the
winter of 1970, iJWalk
Together" played 28 cities
during a six-week tour in
which more than 50,000 Dutch
youth applauded her artistry
with nightly standing ovations.
"Walk Together" reopened
in New York City last season
and the new edition broke all
existing records, its five-
month run being the longest
for a one-worn an show in off
Broadway annals.
