Walking with My Ancestors

About the Show

Walking With My Ancestors: Cape Coast Castle by Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum, Featuring Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum, Directed by Kim Pereira, Produced by Don Shandrow -Executive Artistic Director of Coalescence Theatre Project, Stage Manager Tabitha Miller and Stage Crew George Jackson and Kojo Aduonum was chosen as one of the top four productions from across the country at AACT – American Association of Community Theatre. Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum reaches out to her Ancestors who began their journey to the Americas as enslaved Africans in Ghana. Seeking guidance from the spirits of her Ancestors in order to come to terms with her life in America and her roots in Ghana, she takes a ritual journey with the dead and discovers help, truth and peace while sharing in the depths of their pain and the exhilaration of their celebration in her communion with the dead. Walking With My Ancestors: Cape Coast Castle includes music and dance as it presents a story of revelation, reconciliation and renewal. The AACTFest program is a cycle of festivals that begins at the state level, progresses to a regional festival, and advances ultimately to the national level. Festival adjudicators singled out Walking With My Ancestors: Cape Coast Castle as one of the top four productions out of 12 total that presented at AACTFest 2019. Approximately 200 community theatres began the journey at the many state festivals. The last Illinois Theatre Company to earn the right to present at the national AACTFest was in 1981. Illinois' journey has now brought us to the success of Coalescence Theatre Project’s production of Walking With My Ancestors: Cape Coast Castle at AACTFest 2019 which culminated in Ama Oforiwaa Aduonum walking away with an Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role award.