“Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise. I rise. I rise.”
— Maya Angelou

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
— Frederick Douglass

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world.”
— Harriet Tubman

“I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear.”
— Rosa Parks

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr

“It isn’t where you come from; it’s where you’re going that counts.”
— Ella Fitzgerald

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
— Barack Obama

“The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.”
— Maya Angelou

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
— Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
— Nelson Mandela

“Hate is too great a burden to bear. It injures the hater more than it injures the hated.”
— Coretta Scott King

“We all require and want respect, man or woman, black or white. It’s our basic human right.”
— Aretha Franklin

“History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.
— Michelle Obama

“You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”
— Medgar Evers

“I had no idea that history was being made. I was just tired of giving up.”
— Rosa Parks

October is Black History Month

Lanny opens in Bristol

BRISTOL Old Vic will stage the world premiere of Bea Roberts’ adaptation of Max Porter’s book 2019 Lanny, from 16th October to 7th November.

Porter describes it as a story about a family whose village is peopled by the living and the dead, where a boy with a gift for friendship leaves traces of enchantment in the closely-woven lives around him.

The play is set in a village not far from Bristol where a family is newly arrived from the city. The young son awakens the attention of Dead Papa Toothwort, a mythic figure listening from the woods. Reality and imagination collide in a dark and dazzling story of folklore, fable and the fierce human need to belong.

The novel was nominated for the Man Booker Prize and hailed by The Guardian as “a joyously stirred cauldron of words” and by the Financial Times as “magically beguiling”. Five years in the making, Bristol Old Vic is thrilled to bring this extraordinary imaginative force to the stage.

Performances are nightly from Monday to Saturday at 7.30, with Thursday and Saturday matinees at 2.30.

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