Big Mama Thornton: I Can't Be Anyone But Me

Featuring live Q&A with Filmmaker, Robert Clem

Alabama-born singer and musician Willie Mae Thornton was a preacher’s daughter who went her own way. She joined a traveling variety show at age 14 and had a smash hit in 1953 with “Hound Dog” but had to struggle for another decade before the blues revival of the 1960s brought her back to the limelight. Given the name “Big Mama” at the Apollo Theater, she was tough, funny, a true original determined to do things her way and be the person she wanted to be.

Robert Clem has written, produced and directed works in film, television, radio and theater. Most frequently he has focused on fiction and nonfiction films set in his native Alabama, exploring and deconstructing its history, politics, literature, religion, music and its role as the nation’s central battleground in the movement for black civil rights.

TICKETS
$25 General Admission
$22 Senior (62+)
$20 Veterans