On the 250th anniversary of our nation’s birth, and this being the 10th year of the Global Theatre: Performance Series, we choose to revisit and refocus the lens on one of the plays we produced within the last decade.
In 2023 we produced Surviving Troubled Waters: From Prison to Freedom through Music. We told the stories of two women, BL Shirelle and Naomi Wilson, incarcerated for a total of 37 years in Pennsylvania. They had a close bond and a shared connection in prison and through their music. A bond that was very much like a mother and daughter relationship.
Like last year’s play our protagonist’s journey to redemption is framed by Dante’s journey out of hell to heaven.
This time we focus on the actual mother-daughter relationship of BL Shirelle and her mother, Deborah Taylor, both having had a difficult beginning, each a drug user and drug dealer. Through their incarceration and very complicated relationship they have made it through difficult times. Deborah is now the pastor of her church with an ever-expanding membership and BL is an accomplished musician, producer, and songwriter.
How did this happen? What are their stories? And, what is their relationship today? What lessons can we learn from both of them?
This is a play about a mother-daughter relationship from trauma to hope and redemption.
They are champions of the American Experiment – America250: The Promise and Paradox.
Scott Rothkopf
"The Whitney Museum of American Art:
A New Paradigm for Artists and Audiences"
Monday | 7:30 p.m.
February 9, 2026
Sunday | 7 p.m.
February 22, 2026