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Lincoln Community Theatre productions 
            
            
            Lincoln 
Community Theatre's remaining productions for the summer are "Steel Magnolias," 
            to be presented July 11-19, and "1776," scheduled for Aug. 1-9. The box office 
            at the Johnston Center for Performing Arts on the Lincoln College 
            campus is open 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Saturday; call (217) 
            735-2614. For more information, visit
            
            
            www.geocities.com/lincolncommunitytheatre. | 
          
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            Review by Bobbi Reddix 
            Leslie Beaudet is a student at the 
            prestigious Dillard University in Louisiana, rooming with three 
            distinctly different young African-American women. The three come 
            from different financial stations, have diverse family backgrounds 
            and have a wide range of views on every topic imaginable. The one 
            thing the three roommates do have in common, though, is their view 
            on the beautiful, intelligent, yet mysterious Leslie. Although 
            strong and intelligent, there is something definitely different 
            about her. 
              
       
            In the Beaudet family, Leslie is the 
            glue that keeps this once-proud Haitian family together; she is the 
            rock on whom everyone depends since the departure of their father. 
            Her black Indian mother relies on her for absolutely everything 
            since the departure of Leslie's father. Her younger sister, 
            18-year-old high school dropout Laetitia, is the mother of two 
            children. She calls on Leslie for a sympathetic ear and secretly 
            envies Leslie's dark good looks and her keen intelligence. Her 
            brother, Pierre, has fallen into the dark underworld of drug dealing 
            and works as a pretty boy for the local bigwig. When he and Leslie 
            were younger, he failed her at a crucial moment in her life and has 
            never lived it down. He stays stands aloof from her and the rest of 
            the family and envies her strength.   [to top of second column in 
            this review]
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             Trying to keep together her 
            dysfunctional family and attend college are stressful enough, but 
            when things begin to fall apart all around her, Leslie has had 
            enough, and through voodoo, she taps into a power she never knew she 
            possessed. Leslie's mask of perfection begins to crack after a 
            series of murders in the New Orleans community in which she lives. 
            When all clues point to Leslie as a murderess, her friends and even 
            her family are beginning to learn that they know very little about 
            her. They all discover that when crossed, with the help of a little 
            voodoo, the lovely Leslie can become dangerous as well. Omar Tyree 
            is a New York Times best-selling author, a journalist, lecturer, 
            poet and recipient of the 2001 NAACP Image Award for the best work 
            of fiction. His best-selling novels include "Flyy Girl," "A Do Right 
            Man," "Single Mom," "Sweet St. Louis," "For the Love of Money" and 
            "Just Say No!" He lives in Charlotte, N.C. 
            [Bobbi Reddix,
            Lincoln 
            Public Library District] 
       
      
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