Majigeen
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Majigeen is a musical historical fiction drama written by Jennifer Chase. Majigeen is based on the life of Anta Majigeen Njaay, later known as Anna Kingsley, a young teenager torn from her home in Senegal in the early 19th Century and sold into slavery in Spanish Florida. Her story is told through the fictitious character of Mamadou Seck, griot to the Njaay family. He recounts Anta's fascinating life from her baptism as a young Muslim to her capture and shackled departure from Senegal through the Doorway of No Return, to her marriage to plantation and slave owner Zephania Kingsley and through her adult years as a mother, plantation owner, slave owner, activist and grandmother. We meet along the way African kings and warriors, her family members, Zephania's other wives as well as Zephania himself. Through each character's song, their own unique perspective on such things as polygamy, motherhood, slavery, marriage, Christianity & Islam, betrayal, greed and love and loss. Through the wisdom and humor of the omniscient griot, many similarities between the issues that are on the social forefront today and those thousands of miles away 200 years ago, issues that remind us all of our membership in the same race, the human race.
Majigeen was performed for the first time at Boomtown Theatre in Jacksonville, Florida, on April 7, 2005. Noble Lee Lester was the director for the premier. Percival Cancanindin directed the music, which was performed by the band Tropic of Cancer. The original lighting director was Megan Allen.
