Althea & Angela
WORLD PREMIER
Extended Run: Nov. 20 - 6pm, Towngate Theatre, Wheeling, WV
Written by Todd Olson
In 1955 Althea Gibson and Angela Buxton were world-ranked tennis players...yet no one wanted to partner with them in women’s doubles. In fact, few even wanted to talk with them. Post-War America was still very segregated, and the tennis world was still very anti-Semitic. Eight years after Jackie Robinson had broken the color line in major league baseball, the tennis world lagged behind, clinging to its country club roots.
So, Althea, a black woman from Harlem, and Angela, a Jewish woman from Liverpool, outcasts in two nations, decided to join forces outside their own country - and what happened then made history.
ALTHEA & ANGELA tells the story of their meeting at an exhibition game in New Delhi, pairing up, and winning the French Open and Wimbledon – the first Grand Slam events that any African American - male or female - had ever accomplished. It also tells the story of the unlikely events that occurred 40 years later, when one fell upon destitute times...and the other saved her life by a mass appeal to the tennis world.
**Content Warning - "ALTHEA & ANGELA" contains racist language**