“When I go back to the dressing room, I take off the makeup and I’M NOT ‘EARTHA KITT’ ANYMORE, I’M EARTHA MAE AGAIN.”

 

The sharp-witted, glamorous, incomparable Eartha Kitt commands the spotlight. But backstage in her dressing room, in the quiet between songs, she peels back the glitz to reveal Eartha Mae: a girl from the South Carolina cotton fields, orphaned by her mother until an audience adopted her.

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Told through both story and song, Urbanite Theatre’s first-ever musical production unearths the complex truth behind the icon: “I’m a dirt person. I trust the dirt. I don’t trust diamonds and gold.”

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In WHO IS EARTHA MAE?, Jade Wheeler, playwright and performer, brings to life a powerful woman in search of happiness and the roots she never forgets.

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Presented in partnership with The Hanover Theatre Repertory in Worcester, MA.