PERFORMANCES | Provided By Brian Bemel

“Jamaica Farewell” To Play One Night Only

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Performances To Grow On is proud to present Jamaica Farewell, the award-winning play starring Debra Ehrhardt and directed by Joel Zwick, of My Big Fat Greek Wedding fame on Saturday, August 18 at 7:30 pm at the Ojai Art Center Theater. With all the immigration news of late, the play is very timely and tells the story of a girl’s dream of a better life in America and the strange turn of events that made it possible. Hilarious, thought provoking and riveting, this is a play not to be missed. Tickets are $35 in advance and are available at www.ptgo.org. Tickets are $5 more at the door. Proceeds will benefit the Ojai Storytelling Festival. Following the play, famed director Joel Zwick will offer a Q&A following the performance.

Based on her true life story, writer-performer, Ehrhardt’s Jamaica Farewell chronicles her escape from revolution-torn Jamaica in the 1970’s to fulfill her lifelong dream of coming to America. When Debra Ehrhardt was an 18 year old secretary in Kingston, Jamaica, she and her passion for America bumped into a handsome CIA agent over a bowl of Oxtail soup on her lunch break. With a scheme that involved smuggling 1 million dollars in cash to a mysterious contact somewhere in Miami, see what happens when the audacity of youth comes smack up against the impossibility of escaping from the war-torn class struggle that seized Jamaica in the 1970s. With all the surprise and ingenuity of the best make-believe tales, the true story of Debra Ehrhardt’s dangerous journey from the island of her youth to the country of her dreams will enthrall you, charm you, and ultimately leave you celebrating at the triumphant conclusion of her autobiographical one-woman show.

Jamaican-bred, Los Angeles-based actress Debra Ehrhardt is a storyteller who can fill up empty space with the sheer power of her exuberant storytelling ~CHICAGO SUN TIMES

A combination of spy thriller and slapstick comedy..Ehrhardt is an excellent storyteller and monologist! ~CREATIVE LOAFING, Atlanta

Winning! The evening’s real pleasure is simply Ehrhardt herself, She’ s got it going on, living every day like Independence Day. ~LA TIMES

Powerful.with wit and a melodic Jamaican lilt, Ehrhardt proves to be an entertaining and charming raconteur. ~THE NEW YORKER

About Debra Ehrhardt

Debra Ehrhardt (Writer/Performer)

At the tender age of seven, Kingston, Jamaica native, Debra Ehrhardt, knew her dream was to come to America. By 18, her dream was realized. After a brief sojourn in Miami, she headed north to New York. She studied acting with Katherine Kerr from the Playwrights Horizons and Suzanne Esper at the William Esper Studios in New York City.

After honing her craft on the east coast she concluded that her tropical blood would never get used to the east coast winters. She threw away the ice scraper and moved west. Los Angeles has been her home base for the past fifteen years.

Ehrhardt, with her strong Jamaican accent found that there were very few roles in theater, film or television that she could play. She was encouraged to change her accent but opted against it. Instead she began writing her own plays based on her life experiences in Jamaica and has been working ever since.

Previous productions include Mango, Mango which received two NAACP Awards, Invisible Chairs, which was produced by David Strasberg at the Marilyn Monroe Theatre in West Hollywood and later optioned as a situation comedy by Fox and JAMAICA FAREWELL which was optioned and produced by Tom Hanks wife, Rita Wilson and Garry Marshall at the Falcon theatre.

She received a 2007 Proclamation from the City of New York for JAMAICA, FAREWELL for her “Outstanding Contribution to the Jamaican community” and was named one of Jamaica’s top ten news makers for 2010. JAMAICA FAREWELL was named one of the top shows in the Fall of 2016 when it was produced by Hershey Felder at the Royal George theatre in Chicago.

She is currently performing her new show COCK TALES: Shame on Me! and working on turning JAMAICA FAREWELL into a film.

About the Play in the words of Debra Ehrhardt

“I have great memories of growing up in my beloved Jamaica and am extremely grateful for my rich culture and heritage. From the age of seven I dreamed of seeing America with its theme parks, candy stores, and terrific skyscrapers that pierce the sky. My father was an alcoholic and a gambler, so life was tumultuous and particularly unpredictable, especially when he got bad cards in poker. When he lost big, they came and picked up all our furniture. My mom blamed it on the devil, my grandma blamed it on my mom, and I just imagined myself away from it all, sitting somewhere in Disneyworld next to Cinderella.

When I was a seventeen-year old secretary in Kingston, me and my passion for America bumped into handsome Jack Wallingsford over a bowl of oxtail soup on my lunch break. It was during the turbulent seventies of the Manley Era that I saw my chance; a pinhole of opportunity that I could squeeze through with the help of love-struck Mr. Wallingsford. I began a dangerous adventure that only the single-minded passion of a teenage girl would chance. The boundary between bravery and foolishness blurred as I became more desperate. When I agreed to smuggle a large sum of cash to a mysterious contact somewhere in Miami, I got Jack to help me. Only he had no idea.

Jamaica, Farewell – The Play is a one woman play based on the story of my journey from Jamaica to America during the Manley Era. I wrote it because it encapsulates one of the most adventurous, defining moments of my life.”

– Debra Ehrhardt