Dramatizing Diabetes

By Melissa Jesser

Sugar, Robbie McCauley’s one-woman show, opens Friday, January 20, at ArtsEmerson in the Jackie Liebergott Black Box. McCauley is an Obie-award winning playwright, performance artist and a Professor in Emerson’s Department of Performing Arts. Directed by fellow Performing Arts Professor, Maureen Shea, this highly anticipated performance has waited years to see the Emerson stage.

Sugar is Robbie’s own story of living as an African-American, an actor, and living with diabetes. As a performance artist, Robbie shares her world of celebration and hardship, allowing the audience a peek into the life of an African-American woman living a sugar-free life and her experiences with healthcare in America.

For more insight, read the interviews that Performing Arts Assistant Professor and Dramaturg, Magda Romanska, conducted with award-winning author and theatre scholar, Harvey Young, about McCauley, her earlier work Sally’s Rape and Sugar.

McCauley was also interviewed yesterday by WBURs Meghna Chakrabarti. Listen to the interview.

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Melissa Jesser is a junior BFA Acting major at Emerson College.