Listen: (re)clamation Podcast, From CLASSIX And Theatre For A New Audience, Launches Today
Each act of the podcast will explore a different era or theme in Black theater history through interviews, conversations, and excerpts of first-hand accounts.
CLASSIX, a collective founded by theater director Awoye Timpo, has created a new podcast series, (re)clamation, an intervention in the current conversation around theater history. This podcast, developed as part of CLASSIX's residency at Theatre for a New Audience, recenters and uplifts the Black writers and storytellers of the American theater - both the celebrated and the forgotten. Each act of the podcast will explore a different era or theme in Black theater history through interviews, conversations, and excerpts of first-hand accounts.
(re)clamation is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and SoundCloud. Episode 1: The Georgia Minstrels (1864-1878) is available now.
Listen below:
The podcast will launch with Act 1: Black Performance in the Era of Minstrelsy. Hosted by performer Brittany Bradford ("Julia" on HBO Max, Fefu and Her Friends and Wedding Band at Theatre for a New Audience), this act takes us on a six-episode journey, from the end of the Civil War to the dawn of the Harlem Renaissance, following the performers, writers, and producers of this underexplored era - their triumphs, challenges and the shows they created. In this week's episode, the journey begins with an exploration of one of the first successful Black minstrel troupes, the Georgia Minstrels, and of the careers it launched, particularly that of its leader, Charles B. Hicks.
The podcast features interviews with renowned musician Rhiannon Giddens, distinguished scholar and writer Ayanna Thompson, NYU professor and scholar Michael Dinwiddie, and performer and writer Susheel Bibbs. Episodes were written and researched by Bradford and fellow CLASSIX team members A.J. Muhammad, Dominique Rider, Arminda Thomas and Awoye Timpo and include a theme song by composer and trumpet player Alphonso Horne as well as original music by trombonist Jeffery Miller. Sound design and editing are by Twi McCallum and Aubrey Dube.
(re)clamation was made possible through a commission from Theatre for a New Audience (Founding Artistic Director, Jeffrey Horowitz and Managing Director, Dorothy Ryan) as part of the CLASSIX-Theatre for a New Audience Residency. The residency also included the critically acclaimed 2022 production of Wedding Band by Alice Childress at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center.
For further information about (re)clamation and other CLASSIX projects, please visit www.theclassix.org.
