Playwright Garrett Davis’s new production, Mama’s Girls 2: Sugar Ain’t Sweet, opens with Baby Girl, the adult protagonist, rushing to the hospital with sudden blurred vision. Her startling diagnosis: type 2 diabetes.
And so begins Baby Girl’s poignant journey as she navigates life with finger sticks, new eating patterns, and well-meaning but uninformed relatives who do things like rearrange her kitchen and bake her half a cake because “it only has half the sugar.” Baby Girl’s eventual acceptance of her diabetes and understanding that she can live a good life is an empowering and inspiring message for the audience.
Davis consulted with the American Diabetes Association (ADA) to produce the dramedy, show how diabetes disproportionally affects African Americans, and reveal how this diagnosis transforms families.
For Davis, channeling his passion to raise consciousness through the arts is nothing new. He wrote the original Mama’s Girls in partnership with AARP, an organization that advocates for older adults, to raise awareness around the issues of caregiving. “If you can entertain [people],” he says, “you can educate them.”
The ADA presence after the show was an added bonus. “I thought that was great,” says Moore. “I got to see the things I still can eat [and] the things I still can do.”
Mama’s Girls 2: Sugar Ain’t Sweet is scheduled to play around the United States in 2017. Go to mamasgirls.net for more information.
Don’t miss March’s Diabetes Late Nite podcast inspired by Gladys Knight & the Pips on Tuesday, March 7, 2017, 6-7:30 PM, EST.
Gladys Knight doesn’t have diabetes, but the disease is as close to her heart as the memories of her mother, Elizabeth Knight, who died of complications from the disease in 1997. A five-time Grammy award winner, Knight is as busy as ever gracing the entertainment world with her exceptional voice. Yet she never misses an opportunity to voice the message of early detection and treatment of diabetes.
Gladys shares her final words of wisdom: ” Do something about diabetes … Know more, do more!” Knight feels nearly as passionate about spreading that message as she does about the incredible singing career her mom helped her launch some 54 years ago.
Guests include Stacey Harris aka ‘The Diabetic Pastry Chef’, Mary Ann Hodorowicz, RD, LDN, MBA, CDE, CEC, the Charlie’s Angels of Outreach, Diabetic Divas Unite, SleepyHead Central, Poet Lorraine Brooks and Mama Rose Marie.
https://youtu.be/QPmfbm4jt9c