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The first production of the partnership will be a Zimbabwe folktale, “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters,” which teaches the values of respect for elders, generosity, humility and kindness within the context of West African spiritual traditions. UofL professor Deana Thomas, who heads the African American Theatre Program, will direct the family oriented play.

“We have been producing plays in area schools and other venues for 38 years with our Repertory Company student cast so it’s exciting to take their production to new audiences downtown,” said theater department chair Rinda Frye. “Working with JCPS teachers, we’ve performed before more than 140,000 students. Now we can also share the stories with parents and young audiences in a new setting.”

The public performance of “Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters” will be 2 p.m. Feb. 17 at The Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts’ Bomhard Theatre. Two additional performances for school audiences will be at 10 a.m. Feb. 18 and 19.

Tickets for the Feb. 17 public performance are $15 all ages. For tickets, call the UofL Box Office at 852-6814 or StageOne at 584-7777 or visit .

The UofL-StageOne partners also are developing a creative drama class for college students and area teachers who want to explore the role of theater in K-12 classrooms. The class would be taught by Talleri McRae, associate education director at StageOne.

“We are tremendously excited about this budding partnership between the university and StageOne,” said Peter Holloway, StageOne’s producing artistic director. “There are lots of possible ways for us to work together that could benefit students of all ages from all across the community, and we look forward to exploring those opportunities together.”