A Renaissance woman in her own right, Regina Taylor—actress, playwright, director and activist—brings her writing talents to the Goodman Theatre with her critically acclaimed trilogy, The Trinity River Plays.
A Renaissance woman in her own right, Regina Taylor—actress, playwright, director and activist—brings her writing talents to the Goodman Theatre with her critically acclaimed trilogy, The Trinity River Plays. The work consists of three plays — Jar Fly, Rain and Ghoststory — that follow main character Iris Spears and her matriarchal Texas family, exploring the changes Iris experiences in her life and the complexities of her relationship with her mother. Taylor said that this production is about the obstacles we experience throughout our lives and how we overcome them. “It’s about the transformations in life, the challenges that we have in life and how we meet those challenges,” she told the Defender. The Trinity River Plays is Taylor’s 10th production as a member of the Artistic Collective at the Goodman Theatre. She has put on such works as Crowns, Oo-Bla-Dee, The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, Drowning Crow and Magnolia. Taylor said that she gains inspiration for her plays from her inquiries about life. “(My inspiration comes from) the questions that I have that I need to wrestle with,” she explained. “With this piece, it came out of the questions that I had after the passing of my mother five years ago from ovarian cancer. Sometimes with that the passing of a parent—your root relationship—you question the ground you stand on.” Taylor’s passion for the arts started when she was a child.
“I pursued writing first,” she said. “I’ve been writing since I was a child. (I went on to) become a journalism major in college and I fell into acting in college after taking an acting class.” Her film credits include “Clockers,” “Losing Isaiah,” “Lean on Me,” “Courage Under Fire” and “The Negotiator,” just to name a few. Her role as Lilly Harper on the television series “I’ll Fly Away,” which Taylor said was one of her favorite roles, won her an NAACP Image Award and gave her an Emmy Award nomination and allowed her to receive the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a TV Series. She most recently played Molly Blane on the CBS hit, “The Unit.” Currently Taylor, who recently moved to Chicago, is sharing her talents at Columbia College where she is workshopping her play Magnolia, and at Northwestern University where she is helping the school create its own artistic work. She said that in the near future, she would like to get into producing plays while continuing to challenge herself in her various avenues of expression like theater, film, television and advocacy. In addition to working with Chicago’s Congo Square Theatre Company, she is also working on a program with Sinai Community Institute and with the Ovarian Cancer Symptom Awareness organization. The Trinity River Plays will run in the Goodman’s Albert Theatre until Feb. 20. Copyright 2011 Chicago Defender
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