Award-winning actress and UCSC alumna Adilah Barnes will perform her one woman show-I Am That I Am: Woman, Black-on Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 7 p.m. in the College 9 & 10 Multipurpose Room.
Admission is free and open to the public.
Barnes is best known to television audiences for her five-year run as Anne Marie on ABC's Roseanne.
She has also appeared on a variety of other TV programs, including Cold Case, Gilmore Girls, Roswell, Family Law, Suddenly Susan, and Mad About You.
Barnes's film credits include Murder By Numbers with Sandra Bullock and Erin Brockovich with Julia Roberts. She also played opposite Hillary Swank in the HBO film, Iron Jawed Angels.
In her one-woman play, I Am That I Am: Woman, Black, Barnes will take a historical journey through the lives of seven renowned women: Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Mary McLeod Bethune, Zora Neale Hurston, Lorraine Hansberry, Angela Davis, and Maya Angelou.
Her portrayal of these seven exceptional women takes the audience through time-from the days of slavery to the present. Barnes has toured the show across the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean for more than a decade.
The performance will be followed by a book signing for Barnes's new publication, On My Own Terms: One Actor's Journey. She will also appear at a free reading and book signing event the following day, Jan. 29, at UCSC's Bay Tree Bookstore, beginning at noon.
Barnes earned her B.A. in theatre arts from UC Santa Cruz in 1972, and later served on the UCSC Alumni Council for a seven-year term beginning in 1998.
Her stage credits include the role of Martha Pentecost in August Wilson's award-winning play, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, at both the Los Angeles Theatre Center and the American Conservatory Theatre (A.C.T.) in San Francisco.
Barnes earned a DramaLogue Award for Outstanding Performance in the Julian Theatre's Jo Anne!, and Bay Area Critics Circle Award nominations for both Jo Anne! and Daddy in San Francisco.
She is also cofounder of the Los Angeles Women's Theatre Festival, an annual multicultural event that showcases female artists in dance, music and theatrical performances, spoken word and comedy. Now in its 14th year, the festival has produced more than 400 artists globally.
For more information, contact the UCSC Alumni Office: alumni@ucsc.edu.
