(HOBOKEN, NJ) -- The drama students of Hoboken High School and their director, Danielle Miller, along with celebrated actress Joy Kelly and the Hoboken High School Chorus, present a staged reading of George Cameron Grant’s empowering play Fortune on April 28, 2017 at 7:00pm at Hoboken High School as a fundraiser for its theater program. George’s powerful and noble work is about the most unforgettable women you have never known,  Rose Fortune, who was born a slave, and through a 90-year life span, became a symbol of truth, social equality, and human spirit.

Through the miracle of Skype, they are able to share this presentation of Fortune by the students of Hoboken High School with the citizens of Annapolis Royal, the town where Rose lived and worked 80 of her 90 years and the Annapolis Royal Mayor, the Honorable William MacDonald, who will be present to host his side of the simulcast, and will be sharing with both audiences, exciting details about the latest development in the Rose Fortune mission, dedication of Rose’s memorial in Garrison Cemetery, created by celebrated Canadian sculptor, Brad Hall, on Canada Day, July 1.

Inspired by the life of Rose Fortune, internationally-produced and award-winning playwright George Cameron Grant’s (additional collaborations with New York composer Michael J. Shapiro; composer of Pass On the Love featured in Spike Lee’s Do It A Cappella; Addy Award winner for his work on August Wilson’s Fences) “Fortune” also depicts a facet of American History rarely taught – the role Black Loyalists played to win their freedom from slavery. 

This staged reading will be directed by Hoboken High’s acclaimed Danielle Miller.  Hoboken High, one of New Jersey’s more diverse high schools, recently took home 12 medals in the NJ Thespians Festival competing against 35 other schools. The judges were particularly impressed with the honesty and truthfulness of the performances of the Hoboken students.

In Fortune 10-year old, courageous Rose refuses to accept failure as an option, no as an answer, or despair as a destiny.  As critic David Roberts, Theatre Reviews Limited, wrote,  "Fortune is a powerful testament to the ability of the individual to overcome seemingly impossible odds to achieve success and to the importance of family, faith, and the amazing resilience of the human spirit to overcome.  Fortune is truly transformational theatre.    Real, simple, direct and powerful, it is the kind of theatre that can shift thinking, wake up consciousness, and change lives meaningfully."  

Tickets  are available at hhsnj.booktix.com/dept/Theatre.  ($10 for students and seniors;  $20 general admission) The show is appropriate for everybody including children 8 years and older and their families. 

Hoboken High School is located at 800 Clinton Street in Hoboken, NJ.

PHOTO: Back row from left to right: Lizeth Oliva, Jeane Cummins, David Rivera, Demeara Davenport, George Cameron Grant, Joy Kelly, Hannah Mack, Te' Janea Bradley-Johnson, Debby Moretti, Danielle Miller

Front row from left to rigth: Ivelisse Lorenzo, Aliyah Ramos, Raul Hernandez, Brandon Lyons

Missing:  Andrew Moya & Veronica Mannillo