(MIDDLETOWN, NJ) -- Dunbar Repertory Company at the Middletown Arts Center presents Lisa McCree's And My Name Ain’t Peaches, directed by Darrell Lawrence Willis, Sr., over two weekends, September 27-29 and October 4-6, 2024. Through monologues, music, poetry and dance, playwright Lisa McCree takes a 30-year snapshot of the lives of 11 women from the inner city in her provocative comedy about self-acceptance in a world of rejection.

The piece earned a Human Rights Award for The Theatre Outlet, Allentown, PA, where it was originally produced in 2005. For mature audiences.

Performances take place Friday, September 27 at 8:00pm; Saturday, September 28 at 3:00pm & 8:00pm; Sunday, September 29 at 4:00pm; Friday, October 4 at 8:00pm; Saturday, October 5 at 3:00pm & 8:00pm (MEET THE PLAYWRIGHT after the performance on Sat, October 5 at 3:00pm. Special $17 ticket price for this show only); Sunday, October 6 at 4:00pm. The ticket price is $22 for general admission. Tickets are available for purchase online or by calling the MAC Box Office at 732.706.4100.

The cast of And My Name Ain't Peaches

The Middletown Arts Center is located at 36 Church Street, Middletown, NJ (next to the Middletown train station). Free parking is available onsite with additional free parking available in the station-metered lot on weekday evenings after 6:00pm and on weekends.

Playwright Lisa McCree was the first female electrical engineer to work for Amtrak. She left her career with Amtrak to pursue her interest in writing after her first play, P.S. Write Back received top honors at NYU’s I-2 Ideas into Action Festival. P.S. Write Back moved from NYU to H.B. Studios, where it received a workshop production. Her play, Miss Diagnosis, was developed for New Perspectives 5.0: Women Voices, and A Year Ago Today, And My Name Ain’t Peaches and Anna B. Smith were developed through the Harlem Theatre Company, which also produced her play, Silver Trane. And My Name Ain’t Peaches, Faces in My Fist and Coming to Term were selected for the prestigious National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC. Coming to Term aired as a live reading on CUNY College Radio and Peaches was transformed as a radio play on NY’s WBAI 99.5 FM. Peaches also received a full developmental workshop through The Genesius Theatre Guild where McCree was an Artist in Residence. 

And My Name Ain’t Peaches received its first full production in Allentown, PA at The Theatre Outlet. Her works have been produced and developed through the Saint Mark’s Theater, the Women of Color Festival at the Henry Street Settlement and the Atlantic Theatre. Through her production company, The Writer’s Clique, McCree has self-produced more than a dozen of her works in restaurants, lounges and black box spaces throughout Harlem. She appeared on stage in many Off-Broadway productions, including Straphangers at the 22nd Street Theatre, Looking for Love in Darkness and You Shouldn’t Have Told at the American Theatre of Actors. McCree has worked on numerous television and film projects and has worked both the production and performance side of music videos for B.E.T., VH1 and MTV. She is a member of Frank Silvera Writers Workshop, the Neighborhood Playhouse Writers Workshop and the Frederick Douglas Writers Workshop in conjunction with the Schomberg Museum.

Known to residents of Central New Jersey as “Monmouth County’s African American Theater Company”, Dunbar Repertory Company is committed to its mission of perpetuating an appreciation of cultural diversity and celebrating African American culture through LIVE literary readings, main stage theatrical productions, education programs and services. 

The Middletown Arts Center (MAC) is an award-winning, state-of-the-art facility in Middletown, New Jersey that offers performances, exhibits, classes, demonstrations and camps centering on the arts. Its convenient location across from the Middletown train station on Church Street enables easy access and its expanded MAC Annex Education Building is minutes away next to the Middletown Reformed Church. The MAC is operated by a non-profit 501c3, the Middletown Township Cultural and Arts Council dedicated to bringing quality arts programming and events to Middletown and surrounding communities.