Ifa Bayeza News

Mosaic Theater Company of DC is proud to announce its compelling 2022/23 season, the first season selected and planned by Mosaic’s new Artistic Director, Reginald L. Douglas.

Scribner has announced the April 2022 reissue of the award-winning play for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf by Ntozake Shange, in celebration of its upcoming Broadway revival by Tony nominated choreographer and director, Camille A. Brown.

In celebration of National Filipino American History Month, Leviathan Lab will present readings of three new plays by rising Filipino American playwrights in October 2021.

San Diego's premiere Black theatre, Common Ground Theatre, is proud to announce its 2020-21 season, filled with virtual and outdoor performances around the theme of “Raising Our Consciousness to a Higher Level.” In partnership with Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, Common Ground Theatre's season seeks to provide a “common ground” for people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds to participate, interact, connect and share their love of theatre.

Part history, part mystery and part ghost story, Bayezaa??s lyrical integration of past, present, fact and legend turns Emmetta??s story into a soaring work of music, poetic language and riveting theatricality, transformed into an online format that breaks the notion of what a virtual performance can be. With the actors seen as cut-outs inserted into backdrops to fit each scene, characters move about each other in cars, on a living room couch, or while riding on a Ferris Wheel as if they really are in the scene together at the same time.

The American Theatre Critics Association named Stephanie Alison Walker as the recipient of the 2019 Francesca Primus Prize, which recognizes an emerging woman playwright. The prize, administered through ATCA, is named in honor of Francesca Primus, a playwright, dramaturg, theater critic, and ATCA member who died of cancer in 1992.

Today (August 28) in live streaming: Sierra Boggess visits Backstage Live, Virtual Halston welcomes Linda Lavin, and so much more!

The original director and cast of the Fountain Theatre's 2010, multiple award-winning production of The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza will reunite for a live-streamed reading of the play on Friday, Aug. 28, which marks the 65th anniversary of Till's murder.

The American Theatre Critics Association has selected three finalists for the 2019 Francesca Primus Prize, which recognizes an emerging woman playwright. The prize, administered through ATCA, is named in honor of Francesca Primus, a playwright, dramaturg, theater critic, and ATCA member who died of cancer in 1992.

Children's Theatre Company announced today updates to the 2020-2021 Season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. CTC will begin stage productions in March 2021 with its original production, Seedfolks, which will run for six weeks on the Cargill Stage from March 2 - April 11, 2021.

Today, AUDELCO (Audience Development Committee) President Jackie Jeffries, SeasonWalk Productions CEO Denise Gray, Marcia Pendelton, President of Walk Tall Girl Productions/Black Theater Online, and the Kumble Theater for the Performing Arts, LIU Brooklyn Campus (Rodney Hurley, Managing Director) announced THE THEATERMAKERS - A Black Theater Preview: Winter/Spring Edition.

In keeping with the mission and vision of The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc, the company will present 'a photograph / lovers in motion,' written by Ntozake Shange and adapted and directed by Ifa Bayeza, from February 5 to 29 at Theatre 80 St. Marks, 80 St. Marks Place. The play was first produced at The Public Theater as 'a photograph / a study in cruelty' in 1977 then revised and produced at the Houston Ensemble Theater in 1982 under its current title, 'a photograph / lovers in motion.' It was presented as a feature in NEC's annual reading series in 2015, Year of the Woman.

The Public Theater announced today the Public Forum and Public Shakespeare Initiative fall line-up that will explore the intersection of art, ideas, and action and illuminate the study and performance of Shakespeare's works.

Mosaic Theater Company of DC launches its 5th season this month with the DC premiere of Lynn Nottage's Fabulation, Or The Re-Education of Undine, previewing August 21 (see our August 1 Fabulation press release for opening night information, and our March 29 a?oe#Wokeseason5a?? release for full season line-up), exactly one month after the close of the most successful show in Mosaic's history, the co-production of Kelvin Roston Jr.'s Twisted Melodies, which sold out its last week of performances, playing to record crowds and box office, providing the capstone to a season of transformative artistic and fundraising achievements. 

From Founding Artistic Director, Ari Roth: 'The eight amazing plays in Mosaic's 5th Anniversary Season offer up Stages of Awakening-urgent, exhilarating and humble-that hurtle our characters, and by extension, us, forward to new levels of awareness, puncturing bubbles of pretension along the way. To be 'woke' is to be no longer in the dark about what's happening around us; about the systems of oppression and persistence of racism that permeate daily life. But it can be tricky terrain, these states of 'wokeness,' leading to pats-on-the-back of self- congratulations and new forms of denial. Our extraordinary playwrights are hip to our follies and foibles, just as they're poised to wake us up to the realities of our moment and the relevance of history still knocking on our door.

Ifa Bayeza's (lower case titled) benevolence, the second play in her trilogy revolving around Emmett Till, the 14 year old Chicago boy brutally murdered in the Mississippi Delta in 1955, is hard to watch. It's also important, because it takes us beyond what we think we know to detail the aftermath of Till's violent death on two couples, one white, one black, all real historical figures. Penumbra Theatre in Saint Paul is mounting the world premiere under Talvin Wilks' direction.

In a New York premiere that marks a new chapter for the 27-year-old company rooted in the New York City's vibrant Asian-American community, Yangtze Repertory Theatre tackles JUNE IS THE FIRST FALL, an award-winning contemporary play by Yilong Liu exploring the themes of identity, sexuality, and immigration.

Mosaic Theater Company announces a new initiative to support women playwrights, The Trish Vradenburg Play Commission. The Commission will honor the late Vradenburg's creative wit and contributions to the arts by providing resources and support for emerging women playwrights locally and nationally.

Columbia University School of the Arts presents ten new plays written by the Columbia MFA Playwriting Students of 2018. The esteemed faculty who have nurtured these students, including Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage and Charles L. Mee, invite you to experience these innovative new playwrights.

Penumbra Theatre embarks on an exciting new season under Artistic Director Sarah Bellamy. The 2018-2019 Season, Beyond Belief, explores the rituals, practices, and creative forces that both bind and enliven us. The lineup features classic and contemporary works by emerging and established black artists, the return of the popular Let's Talk series, and meaningful community outreach programming celebrating African American art and culture.