Ntozake Shange News

Celebrating the recent publication of Black Acting Methods: Critical Approaches (Routledge 2017),  Dr. Sharrell D. Luckett will host a conversation with fellow theatre teachers, researchers, and makers, Kashi Johnson and Jonathan Mathias Lassiter, concerning the decolonization of acting methods and pedagogies. While recent conversations tend to focus on norms of representation, this event seeks to explore the myriad eurocentric assumptions that are at play in the formative process of acting, and to present alternatives that stem from African legacies, sensibilities, and experiences. In addition to the public conversation, a closed session for interested actors will take place during the afternoon. Registration to the session is now closed.

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) is proud to present Ya Mama! The production is onstage from October 11 - 27, 2018, in CPT's Gordon Square Theatre.

In keeping with their tradition of honoring the ancestors and artistic leaders of past generations, Penumbra Theatre is opening this season by revisiting Ntozake Shange's groundbreaking iconoclastic work, for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, which won an Obie in 1976 for its Broadway run, which I saw. Let's pause to note that it was the first Broadway show written by a Black woman since Lorraine Hansberry's RAISIN IN THE SUN in 1959.

MCC Theater announces a special fun late-night party performance of the acclaimed New York Premiere production of Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, written by Jen Silverman, and directed by Mike Donahue .

Martin Farawell, Director of the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, has announced highlights of the upcoming 17th biennial four-day event, October 18-21, featuring bestselling authors, literary legends, Pulitzer Prize winners, slam champions, and Academy of American Poets Chancellors. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, Pulitzer Prize-winners Sharon Olds and Gregory Pardlo, as well as much-published and award-winning poets Sandra Cisneros, Sapphire, Eileen Myles, Ntozake Shange, Kwame Dawes, Alberto Rios, David St. John, Henri Cole, Gregory Orr, Mary Ruefle and David Young will be giving Featured Readings during the Festival and are among the dozens of acclaimed poets who will participate in the four-day event, which takes place at the

It is considered by many to be the greatest all-female rock band of all time. Its members were pioneers-all four composed, sang, and played their own instruments, in the face of a music business determined to exploit them, and in a time and a world incapable of accepting them. The band lasted four years, from 1970-1974, but has never received the recognition it deserved. "One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace," David Bowie told Rolling Stone in a 1999 interview. "And that is Fanny…. They're as important as anybody else who's ever been, ever; it just wasn't their time. Revivify Fanny. And I will feel that my work is done."

African-American Shakespeare Company opens their 2018-19 Season with Ntozake Shange's 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf', a play that hasn't been professionally produced in the San Francisco Bay Area for over 20 years.

For the first time in over 20 years the Bay Area will have the chance to experience Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls When The Rainbow is Enuf. This transformative and riveting evening of provocative dance, music and poetry tells the stories of 7 individual women dealing with the at times brutal, tender and dramatic arcs of their lives. 

Cleveland Public Theatre (CPT) presents Ya Mama! The production is onstage from October 11 - 27, 2018, in CPT's Gordon Square Theatre.

The Acting Company (Ian Belknap, Artistic Director; Elisa Spencer-Kaplan, Executive Director) will honor director and artistic leader Bill Rauch and the married civic leaders Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel- individuals whose exemplary work aligns with the artistic and educational ideals of the storied repertory company that produces nationally recognized theater productions and arts education programs-at the Company's 2018 Fall Gala, on November 12. Held at the historic Metropolitan Club (One East 60th Street), the event will bring together awards, live entertainment, silent and live auctions, dinner, and cocktails in celebration of theater and its contribution to American society.

Lisa B. Thompson burst onto the Austin theatre scene in a big way last season with her play UNDERGROUND, which was not only nominated for most of the awards given in Austin, but also managed to walk away with a few. She capped off the season by winning the New Play award from Austin Playhouse's annual playwrighting contest. The contest winning play, MONROE, is opening at Austin Playhouse on September 7th in a World Premiere production. Thompson, besides these two plays, is also the author of the book Beyond The Black Lady: Sexuality And The New African American Middle Class (University of Illinois Press, 2009) which received Honorable Mention in competition for the Gloria E. Anzaldua Book Prize from the National Women's Studies Association. Her work has appeared in Theatre Journal, Theatre Survey, Finding A Way Home: A Critical Assessment Of Walter Mosley's Fiction (University Press of Mississippi, 2008), and From Bourgeois to Boojie: Black Middle-Class Performances (Wayne State University Press, 2011). Her plays include Single Black Female (Samuel French, Inc., 2012) which has been produced throughout the U.S. and Canada. BroadwayWorld recently had the opportunity to sit down with Thompson to talk, in depth, about her new play MONROE, right before it makes its World Premiere at Austin Playhouse to open their season.

MCC Theatre announces the extension by popular demand of the New York Premiere production of Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, written by Jen Silverman, and directed by MCC alum Mike Donahue. Get a first look at the production below!

To acknowledge her outstanding contribution to classical theatre in America, Shakespeare Theatre Company (STC) will present Tony-Award winning actress, singer and stage director Phylicia Rashad with the prestigious William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre (Will Award).

For the first time in over 20 years the Bay Area will have the chance to experience Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls When The Rainbow is Enuf. This transformative and riveting evening of provocative dance, music and poetry tells the stories of 7 individual women dealing with the at times brutal, tender and dramatic arcs of their lives. 

MCC Theater will soon present the first show of the 2018/19 season: the New York Premiere production of Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, written by Jen Silverman, and directed by MCC alum Mike Donahue (The Legend of Georgia McBride at MCC Theater).

MCC THEATER today announced the complete cast and creative team for the first show of the 2018/19 season: the New York Premiere production of Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties, written by Jen Silverman, and directed by MCC alum Mike Donahue

BroadwayWorld Chicago caught up with local playwright Kristiana Rae Colon, whose latest play TILIKUM opens at Sideshow Theatre Company on Thursday.

The Acting Company presented its one-night-only benefit reading of The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams' feverishly poetic 1961 drama, at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues), on Monday, June 11.

A staged reading of Rafael Moreno's family drama Fotos, which played to packed houses and critical acclaim last summer at The Producers Club, will close the 2017 -2018 season of the prestigious Frank Silvera Writers Workshop at the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn on Monday June 18.

The Acting Company announces the full cast of its one-night-only benefit reading of The Night of the Iguana, Tennessee Williams' feverishly poetic 1961 drama,at The Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College (68th Street between Park and Lexington Avenues), on Monday, June 11.