Sunday, February 28, 2010

Tarell Alvin McCraney's WIG OUT! 3/6 (Miami)

Though the acclaimed Brother/Sister Plays by Miamian Tarell Alvin McCraney have yet to be staged in his hometown, another play by the Yale School of Drama grad will get a staged reading during the upcoming Miami Made Weekend at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts.

Under the direction of Teddy Harrell Jr., actors from the African-American Performing Arts Community Theatre will read McCraney's Wig Out!, a play about family groups and rivalries in two competing drag houses. The reading is at 3 p.m. Saturday at the Sanford and Dolores Ziff Ballet Opera House, 1300 Biscayne Blvd., Miami. The event is free, but tickets are required. Info: 305-949- 6722; arshtcenter.org.

-- CHRISTINE DOLEN, Miami Herald

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Laurence Holder's DR. MAY EDWARD CHINN 2/26-28 (NYC)

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Friday, February 19, 2010

Thursday, February 18, 2010

BlackTV247.com

Best of BlackTV247.com: Episode 2 from BTV247 on Vimeo.

This new ad supported African American web video destination has entered the fray, placing an emphasis on quality curated, professionally produced programming. The video wall on the home page grabs content from the site's 16 thematic channels, which break out interesting segments - each focused on a different aspect of Black culture. It's nothing if not eclectic - from news and documentary footage such as an historical May 21, 1961 interview with Nelson Mandela, to entertainment, like an hilarious appearance of Wayne Brady slumming on the Dave Chappelle Show. BTV's editors plan to rotate and introduce channels to reflect current events and trend such the Haiti Relief channel. The site's best hope at making an impact may be at putting together some compelling original programming. For instance, BTV co-founder Cecil Cox co-produced the documentary Black Panther: The Trial Of Huey Newton with HBO for the site, directed by Carl Franklin and featuring never-seen-before footage from the Black Panther Party archives. BTV is currently in talks with partners to syndicate the series.

Source: FilmNewsBriefs.com

Reenie Upchurch's YESTERDAYS 2/19-21 (NYC)

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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Save the Silver House! (Houston)

It's been awhile since I've flooded your emails with my messages to come support your local Houston theatre. Since I've invited you to be apart of an experience that has enriched so many of our lives for the better and ultimately continued to bring us closer as a community.

This time this email I'm sending off is for a different reason. It's to save the Silver House Theatre. The Silver House Theatre, is the place where I along with so many other young talented artists from all walks of life received their start. I remember clearly the day that I walked into the Silver House Theatre, and introduced myself to Miss Marie, I told her that I was an aspiring playwright, and that I want to one day get produced. She looked at me and told me why aspire when I can simply be and guided me as I produced and directed my first play 'A Love Story', it was from there that I went on to produce three multi-cultural play festivals for the city of Houston, several stage productions, and the list of amazing experiences continue on because one woman, one theatre, took the risk and gave a young man the opportunity to be an artist when few theatres would.

The Silver House needs our help and I want to get as many people as possible to come out this Tuesday, Feb. 16th, 2010 at 1107 Chartres Street, Houston (behind the George R. Brown Convention Center). Come join Reginald McKamie Sr., candidate for Judge, 295th Civil District Court, in an evening of Jazz at the Silver House Theatre in a fundraiser to keep the doors of the Silver House Theatre open.

Music proudly presented by the Internationally Famous Conrad Johnson Orchestra.
http://www.conradjo hnsonfoundation. org

All proceeds to go to the Silver House Theatre.

Thank you,
Reginald Edmund

Monday, February 15, 2010

Nottage's RUINED now thru 4/3 (Sarasota)


Date: February 3, 2010 by: Heidi Kurpiela A&E Editor
Yourobserver.com

“It’s a play filled with contradictions,” says FST Artistic Director Richard Hopkins, second from left, seen here working backstage with the cast of “Ruined.” “It reveals the complexity of life in general.”

An air-conditioned rehearsal room at Florida Studio couldn’t be any further from a Congolese brothel, yet the cast of playwright Lynn Nottage’s “Ruined” carries you there. With thoughtful gestures and commanding dialogue, the play, which earned Nottage a Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2009, is so engrossing even audiences watching early run-throughs couldn’t look away. During a behind-the-scenes tour last month, students in FST’s theater appreciation program watched 20 minutes of the show while Artistic Director Richard Hopkins ran cast members through the first scene. With limited props, no set and no costumes, “Ruined” was still startlingly visceral. Just 20 minutes in, the audience was begging for more. Led by actress Alice Gatling as Mama Nadi, the proprietress of a bar and brothel in the Democratic Republic of Congo, “Ruined” is as much a poignant survival story as it is a biting comedy.

“This is the most complex piece of theater I’ve worked on in a decade or two,” says Hopkins, who flew up to New York City last year to cast the show shortly after it wrapped at the Manhattan Theatre Club. “The people are complex. The issues are complex. The emotions are complex.”

FST is the first regional theater company in the Southeast to premiere the show, which was so popular during its New York City run that the Manhattan Theatre Club extended it nine times. “I initially stayed away from it, thinking it would be too dark and heavy,” Hopkins says. “But when I saw the play, I was blown away by how life-affirming and pleasurable it was. It’s a word-of-mouth kind of show.”

Here’s why: Mama Nadi’s brothel is set against the backdrop of a civil war; armed soldiers pass in and out of the brothel, hungry for beer and women. The play begins with Mama, a fortress of a woman, loosely inspired by Nottage’s own interviews with women of the Congo and Bertolt Brecht’s “Mother Courage.” Armed with chocolates, makeup and other commodities, a salesman nicknamed “The Professor” for his bookish glasses and dapper suits (played by Broadway actor Stanley Wayne Mathis) enters Mama’s canteen and offers up the goods, in addition to two new girls. Tempted by the chocolates and delighted to have a new tube of red lipstick, Mama reluctantly agrees to take on both women. The frailer of the two is 18-year-old Sophie, who was raped with a bayonet and has little to offer Mama, except for book smarts and a pretty singing voice — skills that serve her well in the brothel, despite her being “ruined.”

Knowing only this, the plot seems awfully grim, until you hear the rest of Nottage’s script, a mix of weighty subplot, cutting witticisms and playful innuendo. “It has tremendous breadth,” Hopkins says. “So many points of view are delivered on stage and it’s done with such humanity. We see the Congo from the point of view of the farmer, the rebel soldier, the government commander, the diamond merchant, the educated, the uneducated, the earthbound and the spirit-bound. It’s an amazing world this playwright has put together.”

The cast is huge by FST standards — 11 actors and two musicians, many of whom play more than one character, making “Ruined” the company’s biggest-budget production of the season. “Every actor in New York City came out for this audition,” Hopkins says. “We chose from some of the best actors in the country.”

The drama, which opened Feb. 3 in FST’s Keating Theatre, couldn’t be more different than “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” a Tony Award-winning musical about goofy middle-school students competing to win first place in a spelling competition. Yet, if you ask Hopkins if Sarasota audiences will have difficulty stomaching “Ruined,” he’ll say that the show is no less watchable than “Spelling Bee,” which closed last Friday on the same stage. He mentions that the show includes contemporary Congolese music that, like the play itself, is contrary to what audiences might expect.“I thought this play deserved a Pulitzer Prize,” Hopkins says. “And I think Sarasota deserves to see it.”

To visit the FST website or to buy tickets, please click the post's title.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

Kim Porter's MUNCHED 2/24 (NYC)

Munched
a staged reading
by Kim Porter directed by Petronia Paley
with Patricia R. Floyd*, Kisa Willis, Althea Alexis* and Bryan Webster*

Wednesday February 24 at 8:00pm

Spoon Theater 38 W 38th Street (btw 5th and 6th)

Suggested donation $10 reservations: info@svtheatricals.com

A mother is convicted of an unspeakable crime. Twenty-five years later the daughter she’s accused of hurting sits outside the “monster’s” front door with a big box of “WHY?” Kim Porter’s hilariously disturbing treatment of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy questions the treatment of women in the health care system and throws in a little taste of Flip Wilson for good measure. Produced by Buzzworks Theatre Company the play garnered five 2010 LA Drama Critics Circle nominations, Munched will be staged by SVT in the Fall of 2010 but you can join us for a sneak peek at this one-of-a -kind love story Wed, Feb 24 at 8:00.

Sugar Valley Theatricals produces works for the stage that give voice to subjects rarely broached in people-of -color communities. We are always grateful for your contributions through our fiscal conduit Fractured Atlas. To learn more, please click the post's title.
*members AEA

Friday, February 12, 2010

Sloan Robinson's BANANAS opens today (NYC)

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Daniel Beaty's THROUGH THE NIGHT opens today (New Brunswick)

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Click post's title to go to website.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Call for Playwrights of Color under 40yrs old

Submission Deadline: April 15, 2010
Announcement of Six Festival Participants: June 15, 2010
Festival Dates: August 15 - August 22, 2010


Submission Guidelines:
  • There is no restriction as to subject matter. Victory Gardens hopes that a diversity of perspective will inform the plays, but the plays do not have to deal specifically with race, ethnicity or identity issues.
  • The initiative is open to all playwrights of color under 40 years old.
  • Playwrights must not yet have received a full production at a major regional theater.
  • Submitted plays must unproduced and must be in English or primarily in English.
  • Playwrights may only submit one full-length play.
  • Plays must be submitted by mail, not electronically, and should not be permanently bound.
  • Please include a biography or resume.
  • Please include a return addressed postcard if you wish to be notified that the script arrived.
  • All scripts will be recycled after reading and will not be returned.
  • There is no submission fee.
Submit to: IGNITION
Victory Gardens Theater
2257 N. Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60614 60614

Source: The Loop

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Michael McKeever's MELT 2/18-28th (Miami)

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I want to personally extend an invitation to you to attend the preview night of the play Melt on Thursday, February 18th. Melt will be shown at Actor’s Playhouse on Miracle Mile at 8pm.
Melt tells the story of an African American brother and sister, a Jewish father and son and a Hispanic mother and her son who find their lives intertwining over social and moral issues as seen from the perspective of each culture. A highly motivated group of community professionals have committed to fund raise to donate to the community approximately half of the tickets to various relevant groups, such as, community based and civic organizations, high school students, academicians, clergy and members of local fire and police departments to truly make it a ‘ONE COMMUNITY, ONE PLAY’ event.
If you are interested in attending the play on February 18th, or learning more about the project please contact me here.

Thank you.
Cameron Sisser

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

OUT LOUD: Voices of the Black Power Babies 2/25 (Dartmouth)

The Griot's Corner @ the Frederick Douglass Unity House

Proudly Presents

OUT LOUD
Voices of the Black Power Babies

A generation of Performing Artists, Writers and Educators were born and raised during, as well as directly influenced by the artists, intellectuals and cultural architects of the Black Arts Movement; as the movement enters it's third generation we explore the transformation of a movement into a culture. Join us for our first evening of performances and conversation with two generations of Black Arts Movement Artists.

Featuring:
ASKIA TOURE - Griot, Poet, Black Arts Movement Architect, & Black Studies Pioneer
MIKAL AMIN "Hired Gun" LEE - Griot, poet, MC, and educator
TAH PHRUM DUH BUSH - Griot, Poet, Philosopher, MC and Actor
TANTRA-ZAWADI - Griot, Performance Poet, Writer and Filmmaker
MWALIM *7 - Griot, Performance Artist, Writer, Filmmaker and Assoc Prof of English and African/ African American Studies

THURSDAY, FEB. 25 - 6:30 - 8:30 PM

Frederick Douglass Unity House
285 Old Westport Road.
N. Dartmouth, MA 02747

For more information, contact 508.999.9222 or mpeters@umassd, edu

This event is Free and open to the public

"In my childhood a circumstance occurred which made an indelible impression on my mind, and laid the ground work of that enthusiasm.. ." - Nat Turner

MWALIM (MJ Peters)
Assoc. Professor of English & African/ African American Studies
Univ of Mass Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Rd.
N. Dartmouth, MA 02747
mpeters@umassd. edu
PH: 508-999-8304
FX: 508-999-9235

Monday, February 8, 2010

PLAYS FOR HAITI -- TONIGHT! (NYC)

7:30pm TONIGHT!

Blackboard @ the cell
PLAYS FOR HAITI
5 Minute Plays
featuring work by:
Zay Amsbury
Joan Baker
Garlia Cornelia Jones
Shaun Neblett

Donations Greatly Appreciated
to Benefit "DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS"
www.playsforhaiti.com
See you Tonight!

--
BlackBoard Reading Series
2nd Mondays
the cell theatre
338 W. 23rd (23rd b/t 8th and 9th Ave.)
www.blackboardplays.com
thecelltheatre.org

Sunday, February 7, 2010

DeeWorks Live! 4pm to 7pm Today

Click Image to Enlarge.

For those of you who tried to tune in last Sunday, we apologize. As a result of technical difficulties, we were unable to broadcast our show. We hope that you will tune in with us this Sunday - Yes, we know it is SuperBowl Sunday, but tune us in as you prep for the game from 4pm - 7pm

Featured Guest: Washington DC Playwrite - Merrill D. Jones - discussing the upcoming reading of her play "Mrs. Streeter" on Monday, Feb. 8, 2010 @ 6:00pm - Free Admission - Dramatist Guild 1501 Broadway, NY, NY

Mwalim's DEM BIG GIRLS gets some big attention



BOSTON - In the beginning of December, Mwalim uploaded his newly finished Music Video for DEM BIG GIRLS on his Youtube channel, placed a couple of links on his Facebook and myspace page and watched what happened. As the link for the video got passed around to a few folks via the social chat site, the catch little tune began to draw viewers from all over the place.

The artsy little opus, directed by soul artist Phillip Aaron has been creating quite a buzz in the New England and New York regions. Filmed during the Caribbean Festival in August at Biff's Lounge and the William E. Reed Auditorium in Dorchester, Massachusetts (both housed in the Prince Hall Grand Lodge) the video became the perfect off-set for Mwalim's underground, dance hall club track.

Liberation Music - MGM is currently trying to secure regular broadcasting for the video on BET's video shows as well as the MO'nique Show given the song being an ode to the plus-sized beauties of the world.

MWALIM (MJ Peters)
Associate Professor of English & African/ African American Studies
Univ of Mass Dartmouth
285 Old Westport Rd.
N. Dartmouth, MA 02747
mpeters@umassd. edu
PH: 508-999-8304
FX: 508-999-9235

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Michael Bradford's FATHER AND SONS 2/11-4/4 (Chicago)

[eta Creative Arts Foundation] MAINSTAGE SHOW
FEBRUARY SPECIAL "2 for 1"
* Thursday 8:00PM and Sunday @7:00PM
"Fathers and Sons" Written by Michael Bradford
Directed by Kemati J. Porter

Fathers and Sons
Over the course of one fateful night, three generations of fathers and sons confront a lifetime of absence, mistrust, mistakes and broken
promises, all for the possibility and the hope of a new sunrise.
Featuring Dale Benton, Olivia Charles, Mark Howard and George C.
Stalling

February 11 Thru April 4, 2010 Thurs - Sat., 8 pm; 3 & 7 pm
Sundays $30 (student, senior, group discounts) *"2 for1" based on the
$30 ticket only [Allstate] [jpmartin] eta Square
7558 S. South Chicago Avenue, Chicago

For more information, call eta at 773-752-3955 or visit
www.etacreativearts .org
http://r20.rs6. net/tn.jsp? t=wxbygidab. 0.0.qlxt7ecab. 0&ts=S0448& p=http%3\
A%2F%2Fwww.etacreat ivearts.org% 2F&id=preview> Now in its 39th
season, eta Creative Arts Foundation seeks to be a major cultural
resource institution for the preservation, perpetuation and promulgation of the African American aesthetic in the City of Chicago, the State of
Illinois and the Nation. In a colloquial sense, "to tell our story in
the first voice".

Friday, February 5, 2010

Thursday, February 4, 2010

PLAYS FOR HAITI Monday, 2/8 at the cell (NYC)

Monday, February 8, 2010
7:30pm
PLAYS FOR HAITI
5 minute plays
Featuring New Work by...
Zay Amsbury
Joan Baker
Garlia Cornelia Jones
Shaun Neblett
... and more....
RSVP by Email or on Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=283347024957

See you Monday and THANK YOU to everyone who participated
in our very intense and in depth discussion: New Voices in Black Theatre last month!
Visit: www.blackboardplays.com for more information

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Crossroads offers Valentine's Day package (New Brunswick)

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For more information, please click the post's title.