Debra Ehrhardt had big dreams for her small play. After performing her one woman show Jamaica Farewell all around the U.S., picking up award after award she knew she had something. “My dream for this story was to get it on the big screen but if I had a million dollars I would have bet that it would never have happened!”
When Rita Wilson and her husband Tom Hanks came to see Jamaica Farewell in 2009 Ehrhardt thought she had some big fans. “I could barely contain myself, I couldn’t believe they were actually there!” says Ehrhardt. And when the Hollywood power couple came back a second time and then a third time with their agents, Ehrhardt knew they were more than just fans. “Rita Wilson said she wanted to make the play into a movie. It was like the American dream come true for me, I couldn’t believe it.”
It was more like only a matter of time before Jamaica Farewell got some big attention. Ehrhardt’s one woman show had been putting people on the edges of their seats for the last four years. It gained her several nominations from the NAACP theatre awards and even a proclamation from the city of New York for her “outstanding contribution to the Jamaican community.” Not to mention, the rave reviews that kept pouring in. The late Perry Henzell, director of Harder They Come saying, “Debra held the audience spellbound for one and a half hours without a hitch…some serious talent involved here.” The Washington Post said, “Debra Ehrhardt possesses a rare ability to mesmerize that would have kept ancient Grecians sitting around the fire for hours.” And the New York Times described it as “Exuberant! High Comedy!”
The play tells Ehrhardt’s true story of her journey of escape from Jamaica to the U.S. “When I was a seventeen-year old secretary in Kingston, me and my passion for America bumped into handsome Jack Wallingsford over a bowl of oxtail soup on my lunch break. It was during the turbulent seventies of the Manley Era that I saw my chance; a pinhole of opportunity that I could squeeze through with the help of love-struck Mr. Wallingsford. I began a dangerous adventure that only the single-minded passion of a teenage girl would chance. The boundary between bravery and foolishness blurred as I became more desperate. When I agreed to smuggle a large sum of cash to a mysterious contact somewhere in Miami, I got Jack to help me. Only he had no idea.”
With an intriguing combination of comedy and drama, Jamaica Farewell has all the elements of a hit movie. “I think you have a good story when people constantly want to know what happens next.” And perhaps Rita Wilson saw the same potential in Jamaica Farewell that she saw in the other one woman show that she transformed into a sleeper hit, My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The star of that show Nia Vardalos, like Ehrhardt, wrote the play because she was tired of being overlooked for roles in Hollywood. Both playwrights don’t fit the Hollywood mould; Vardalos with her distinct Greek features and Ehrhardt with her strong Jamaican accent. Greek Wedding raked in almost $250 million in North America alone, and picked up an Oscar nod for best screenplay. So if that’s any indication of Rita Wilson’s track record, Jamaica Farewell can go only one place…up…WAY up!
August 28th 2010, 2 shows only 4:00pm and 8:00pm.