Toni Stone

Toni Stone is an encyclopedia of baseball stats. She’s got a great arm. And she doesn’t understand why she can’t play with the boys. About the first woman to go pro in the Negro League and featuring a bullpen of players crossing age, race and gender to portray all supporting roles, Toni Stone is a vibrant new play about staying in the game, playing hard, playing smart and playing your own way.

About the playwright 

Lydia R. Diamond 

In April of 1969, Lydia Diamond was born Lydia Gartin in Detroit, Michigan. After her parents divorced at a young age, Lydia was raised chiefly by her mother, who was a musician. Since she grew up in a very artistic family, Lydia always found herself drawn to the arts. Her artistic inclinations kept her company as she and her mother moved to wherever her mother’s work took them. Though her family hoped she might follow in her grandfather’s footsteps and play the violin, she turned to theatre instead after joining the drama club in high school. It wasn’t until her college years at Northwestern University that Lydia discovered a love of playwriting as well. 

While she was at Northwestern, Lydia received the Agnes Nixon Playwriting Award for her first play, Solitaire. In 1991, Lydia graduated with a B.A. in Performance Studies and met John Diamond, whom she would marry in 1996. After graduating, she founded her own theatre company, Another Small Black Theatre Company With Good Things To Say and A Lot of Nerve Productions, putting up several of her own plays in Chicago and expanding her playwriting repertoire.

Today, Lydia Diamond is known both as a playwright and a professor. She has received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award as well as countless other accolades. She often incorporates underrepresented perspectives and adaptations into her work, making her the perfect person to bring The Bluest Eye from the page to the stage.

– Bio by A Noise Within

About the moderator

Sherronda Johnson (Stage Manager / Intimacy Choreographer / Director / Actor) is a seasoned theatre artist specializing in script analysis, character development, and theatrical insight to bring characters to life with authenticity and emotional depth. Her eye for detail and narrative structure has supported productions like Knight Songs at Blue City Cultural Center; Grease, Cinderella, Beautiful: The Carole King Musical, The Glass Menagerie, and A Raisin in the Sun at Theatre Memphis; Carmen Jones, Succession, Father Comes Home From The Wars Parts 1, 2 & 3, The Color Purple, and Porgy and Bess at Hattiloo Theatre. Passionate about collaborative communities and actor safety, Sherronda ensures every performance stays true to the script and touches the hearts of your audience.