Angela Karol Grovey stars as Wanda in Portland Center Stage's production of Crowns.
Hats are like people. Sometimes they reveal. Sometimes they conceal. And sometimes they simply astound you.
Regina Taylor's Crowns, on the Portland Center Stage, is based on photographer Michael Cunningham's and journalist Craig Mayberry's acclaimed Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats. The book lovingly evokes the lives and stories of 54 "hat queens," ranging in age from 22 to 78, who are captured in the "crowns" they wear to church each Sunday.
Actress and playwright Regina Taylor has distilled the book's characters down to six women — and one man — in a story about a young woman from Brooklyn who is sent to live with her grandmother in South Carolina after her brother is shot.
Crowns plays through April 9 in the Newmark Theatre,1111S.W. Broadway. For ticket information, visit www.pcs.org or call 503-274-6588.
