Jamaica, Farewell at Soho Playhouse

The international hit Jamaica, Farewell returns to New York's SoHo Playhouse. Debra Ehrhardt's solo show is based on a mostly true story about her journey to the USA from Jamaica in the turbulent 1970s of the Manley Era. When Ehrhardt was an 18-year-old secretary in Kingston, Jamaica, she and her passion for America bumped into a handsome CIA agent over a bowl of oxtail soup. She decides to squeeze through the pinhole of opportunity with the help of this love-struck American. Her way out of Jamaica is blocked by many obstacles: an alcoholic father, a bible-spouting mother, the price of an air ticket, and U.S. government suspicions. Nevertheless, she begins a dangerous adventure that only the single-minded passion of a teenage girl would chance. The boundary between bravery and foolishness becomes blurred as she becomes more desperate. When she agrees to smuggle a million dollars in cash to a mysterious contact somewhere in Miami, the agent becomes her unwitting accomplice. Every part is played by NAACP award winner Ehrhardt, an actress capable of amazing mimicry. This one-woman caper's got generous dollops of humor, laughter and light. Jamaica, Farewell has been optioned for film by a major Hollywood producer.