The Bathroom Cleaner
Drama, 2 M, 5 W
Ardella cleans the bathroom at Mamie's Beauty Shoppe. She's been doing if for more than 30 years, and her teen-aged grandson Leroy doesn't understand why she humiliates herself. It is, after all, 1952 in Lexington, Kentucky, and Negroes have to get up out of the dirt, instead of wallowing in it. Only after Miz Mama, Ardella's long deceased mother, appears to tell what happened on a downtown street years ago, do Leroy and the others at Mamie's shop, understand what it means to be a servant. And how sometimes getting down in the dirt is the only way to get up.
The Bathroom Cleaner is based on Orndorff's short story, "The Bathroom Cleaner." This story won $25,000 in the international Power of Purpose Awards sponsored by the Templeton Foundation and Rick Warren.
Winner, Heritage Playwriting Festival, (KY), 2007
Wonderland One-Act Play Festival, New York City, 2007
Juneteenth Legacy Theatre, Louisville (KY), 2006
Semi-Finalist, Drury University One-Act Play Competition, 2006
Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant, 2005
The Bathroom Cleaner is based on Orndorff's short story, "The Bathroom Cleaner." This story won $25,000 in the international Power of Purpose Awards sponsored by the Templeton Foundation and Rick Warren.
Winner, Heritage Playwriting Festival, (KY), 2007
Wonderland One-Act Play Festival, New York City, 2007
Juneteenth Legacy Theatre, Louisville (KY), 2006
Semi-Finalist, Drury University One-Act Play Competition, 2006
Kentucky Foundation for Women Artist Enrichment Grant, 2005
