UMSL Theatre Presents L-VIS LIVES Next Month At Kranzberg

From the poet the Chicago Tribune calls "the new voice of Chicago," comes L-vis Lives!, a bold new collection of poetry and prose exploring the collision of race, art, and appropriation in American culture.

L-vis is an imagined persona, a representation of artists who have used and misused Black music. Like so many others who gained fame and fortune from their sampling, L-vis is as much a sincere artist as he is a thief. In Kevin Coval's poems, L-vis' story is equal parts forgotten history, autobiography, and re-imaginings. We see shades of Elvis Presley, the Beastie Boys, and Eminem, and meet some of history's more obscure "whiteboy" heroes and anti-heroes: legendary breakdancers, political activists, and music impresarios.

A story of both artistic theft and radical invention, L-vis Lives! is a poetic novella on all of the possibilities and problems of "post-racial" American culture-where Black art is still at times only fully accepted in a white face, and every once in a while an "L-vis" comes along to step in to the void.

Performances:

December 1-2, 7:30pm

December 3, 2:00pm

FREE

For more information visit www.kranzbergartscenter.org.