When Dael Orlandersmith said she wanted to write a play about a Danish white woman who loved Billie Holiday, people balked. Why would a black female playwright who has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her meditations on race, colorism and culture want to ... well, write outside of her race?
A community in the aftermath of unrest. The painful legacy of abuse, as experienced by black boys and men. The intimately insidious effects of colorism. The remembrance of a life lived and love lost, inspired by a chance encounter with a famously tragic jazz singer. Playwright and actor Dael Orlandersmith’s particular…
It’s back-to-school season, but not all students have access to art programs especially under the current administration. Actor, singer and activist Bryan Terrell Clark wants to change that.
Seven women, a segregated society, and an age-old means of survival. That’s the pretext behind the play The House That Will Not Stand, now in production at the New York Theatre Workshop in New York City.
For lovers of theater, there is no bigger night during the year than the Tonys, which celebrated their 72nd annual ceremony at New York City’s Radio City Music Hall on Sunday. Among others, Denzel Washington, Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry, previous Tony winner (for The Color Purple) LaChanze and director George C. Wolfe…
A war. A hero. A conflict. A journey.
Respect your elders. I don’t know a child who wasn’t raised with that admonition, which in my household was often accompanied by a swat on the butt or a swift side-eye when due respect wasn’t paid. But it’s generally far later in life when most of us learn the value of also listening to our elders’ stories—often after…
Currently, Angels in America, the most Tony Award-nominated play in history, is smack in the middle of its much anticipated revival on Broadway in New York City. Debuting in 1992, Tony Kushner’s iconic and surreal tale tackles external and internal homophobia, Reaganism, McCarthyism and the AIDS epidemic in a much…
