“Ruby McCollum”

This week’s L.A. Theatre Works features the play Ruby McCollum by Ron Milner, Steve Albrezzi, and William Bradford Huie. In 1952, in a small Florida town, a wealthy African-American woman named Ruby McCollum shot and killed a respected white physician, ostensibly over a bill. Her true motives came to light during her murder trial, which made national headlines. Our story this week is a true-life case that’s the stuff of a Southern Gothic novel, complete with interracial romance, drug abuse, mental illness, and the racist attitudes of the Jim Crow South. Ruby McCollum stars Paul Winfield and Loretta Devine, and was written by William Bradford Huie, with our adaptation by Ron Milner and Steve Albrezzi. Hour One includes a conversation with C. Arthur Ellis, author of Zora Hurston and the Strange Case of Ruby McCollum.

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