Introducing the real Ma Rainey. Ahead of the premiere on December 18, 2020 of August Wilson’s play Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, it is important for audiences to realize that Ma Rainey is not a fictional character born of Wilson’s imagination, but rather a massively popular singer who crossed musical boundaries. Wilson himself was influenced by […]
About Jordan Ealey
Review: A Protest In 8: Strategize, Organize, Mobilize from Theater Alliance
A daughter confronts her police officer father. An absurdist game show tries to determine who is the most Black. A candidate for district attorney confronts her traumatic past. A sex worker encounters a magical restaurant. These are just a few of the snapshots from Theater Alliance’s virtual play festival, Strategize, Organize, Mobilize: A Protest In […]
Black Theatre: Jennifer L Nelson reflects on African Continuum Theatre Company
In his 1996 speech, “The Ground On Which I Stand,” acclaimed playwright August Wilson charged the American theatre industry to take seriously the funding and producing of Black theatre. This includes not casting Black actors in roles originally written for white actors (condemning “colorblind” casting), but rather to program plays by Black playwrights, hire Black […]
Award-winning playwright Adrienne Kennedy finally gets her due, and debuts a new play in upcoming festival
[Editor’s note: DCTS had been planning to review Kennedy’s debut play Etta and Ella on the Upper West Side, before we ceased publication on Dec 31. The reading was rescheduled, and so I recommend Jonathan Mandell’s Kennedy festival review.] When I first encountered Adrienne Kennedy, through her Obie award winning 1964 play Funnyhouse of a […]
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