Photo courtesy of: AP Photo/BH, File © 2021 WGBH Educational Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

(TEANECK, NJ) -- Direct from its sold-out world premiere at Queens College, The Invaders, A Freedom Summer Play makes its New Jersey premiere with a special live talk-back on Saturday, September 21, 2024 at 7:00pm at The Puffin Cultural Forum.  The Invaders tells the story of the Mississippi Summer Project of 1964, more commonly known as "Freedom Summer."

Queens College student Andrew Goodman volunteers to be a part of “Freedom Summer,” overseen by some of the greatest names in civil rights history, including Stokely Carmichael, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Bob Moses. Their mission? To register Black voters in a state that has unconstitutionally robbed them of their voices for centuries. But conflict both within and without stands in-between the idealistic activists and their vital mission – one that will forever change those who survive. The Invaders takes us from the brilliantly lit theatres of a college campus in New York City, to the dark hidden roads of a bloody Mississippi midnight. It is a story of yesterday, with echoes that reverberate around us sixty years later.

The play is being produced by the Andrew Goodman Foundation. The Invaders premieres “at a critical time in our nation,” said Andrew Goodman Foundation Executive Director, Rashawn Davis. “The legacies of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner are as important now as they have ever been.” Gladys Miller-Rosenstein, Executive Director of The Puffin Foundation, says, “We soon will be facing concerns here in the United States about the ability to vote freely and safely.  All of us are proud to have The Invaders shown at The Puffin Cultural Forum.  This play shows us how far we still have to go to right our wrongs…it is a story of yesterday that is important not to forget today.”

Join the cast and creative team of The Invaders for a special reading at The Puffin Cultural Forum (20 Puffin Way) Teaneck, NJ on Saturday, September 21st at 7:00pm.  $10 suggested donation and reservations can be made through the Puffin Cultural Forum website at www.puffinculturalforum.org

The play was written by theatre veteran Ralph Carhart, a senior college laboratory technician who also serves as an adjunct lecturer at Queens College, and is directed by Jordan Owens. Jeremy Lentz, Director of Special Projects at The Puffin Foundation, “is thrilled to bring a condensed shortened reading of the play to audiences in New Jersey to coincide with our fall art exhibit ‘Democracy 2024’ which will be on display in the Puffin Cultural Forum gallery.  We are also excited to be planning a robust panel discussion to be moderated by Carhart and feature some of the surviving relatives from the families of Goodman, Schwerner, and Chaney.” Details on the panel will be announced soon.