Pulitzer Prize-nominated play "The Bookstore" an ode to Una Mulzac's Liberation Bookstore
Nancy Marie Gilliam has made an honorable career working for Philadelphia's Office of Homeless Services for 14 years, but she was never able to pursue her first love: performing on Broadway.
"My father took me to see the all-Black production of 'Hello Dolly,'" Gilliam said.
"Hello Dolly" featured Cab Calloway and Pearl Bailey, the actresses her father insisted she meet as a child — and that she did.
Gilliam said that, as a toddler, she marched across the stage during a performance.
"The audience just went bananas," Gilliam said. "[Pearl Bailey] picked me up, kissed me on my forehead."
More than 50 years later, Gilliam hopes her play "The Bookstore," which is up for a Pulitzer Prize in the drama category, will elicit the same reaction. She began writing the play during the COVID-19 pandemic as an ode to Una Mulzac, the owner of Harlem's iconic staple Liberation Bookstore.
The play takes place in the 1960s at the height of the Black Power movement when the FBI targeted Black independent booksellers.
"We have to tell the story of how they were using Black people to infiltrate bookstores to get the information they needed," Gilliam said.
While this could be her most accomplished work of art, Gilliam's career began on the big screen as an extra in the 1980s film "Fame." Over the last five decades, her roles have grown.
Gilliam plays a mother whose son was arrested in her latest role in the "Dear Mara."
"These are some things we need to talk about," Gilliam said. "The injustices in the prison system, the underworld of the rap music scene and the rival gang things that go on."
Gilliam does it all as an actor, writer and producer. "The Bookstore" proves her years of dedication to the craft have not gone unseen.
The Pulitzer Prizes are awarded in May.
"Dear Mama" will premiere at local theatres on Jan. 18.
