Tanner to stage solo show about struggle to defy the odds
Skidmore College celebrates Black History Month with a free presentation of the one-woman theater piece Running Into Me starring Vickie Tanner. The performance is scheduled at 8 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18, in the Janet Kinghorn Bernhard Theater. Admission is open to the public.
Skidmore's Theater Department, Office of the Dean of Student Affairs, and Black Faculty/Staff Group are sponsors of the production.
Running Into Metells the story of actor/writer Tanner beating the odds and succeeding, despite a misguided upbringing in the poor, urban neighborhood of Compton, Calif. As she plays various family members and other characters in her troubled past, she explores the lives of today's urban youth through re-enacted interviews conducted during a decade working with New York City teens. Tanner interweaves these interviews throughout her personal narrative, taking the audience on an odyssey into the minds of young people while painting an insightful portrait of her own roundabout journey: from Compton teenager to New York City actor, then back to the urban neighborhoods as a teaching artist.
Tanner holds a B.F.A. degree in theatre from California State University at Long Beach and trained with Maggie Flannigan at the Maggie Flannigan and William Esper Studios in New York. Among her theater credits are Stomp (Orpheum Theatre, National and European tours); world premiere of Tantalus (Denver Center Theatre and British tour with the Royal Shakespeare Company), Two Days (Long Wharf Theatre, by Donald Margulies, directed by Lisa Peterson), and That Damn Dykstra (Access Theatre). She has performed Running Into Me at the Kitchen Theatre in Ithaca, N.Y., Union College, at Queen's Theatre in the Park, 78th Street Theatre Lab, Dixon Place Theatre and Cherry Lane. Her film credits include Drop Back Ten, Acts of Worship, No Way Out and The Apology; her TV credits include NYPD Blue, STOMP Out Loud, Wonderland, Law and Order SVU, and Mercy.
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