THE SANKOFA TRILOGY to be Presented at Summerworks Festival

Experience a pantodub theatre griot posse workshop reading of d'bi.young anitafrika's acclaimed trilogy, featuring a dynamic mix of practitioners from The Black Theatre School in collaboration with mid-career artists at the Summerworks Festival, presented by the Watah Theatre. 

THE SANKOFA TRILOGY is anitafrika's two-time Dora Award-winning triptych of biomyth monodramas, featuring the plays blood.claat, benu, & word! sound! powah! Having recently completed their PhD in Black performance aesthetics, anitafrika reimagines the trilogy with an expanded cast. It journeys through extraordinary stories of three generations of powerful Jamaican womyn – Mudgu Sankofa, her daughtxr Sekesu, and her granddaughter Benu whose stories traverse the intersections of gender, race, class, hxrstory – and their resolute belief in blood, truth, and r/evolution. blood.claat was nominated for 5 Dora Awards including Outstanding Design, Outstanding Direction and Outstanding Production. benu and word! sound! powah! has received numerous Critic's Picks and Audience Choice Awards. 

In blood.claat Mudgu Sankofa, the 15-year-old protagonist, navigates hxr relationship with hxr menstruation, the blood of the violence she witnesses, and the cycles of love, life and death in hxr family. In the second play benu, Sekesu Sankofa, Mudgu's daughtxr, battles postpartum depression while navigating the alienation, invisibility and abuse Black womyn experience in the healthcare system. And in the final play word! sound! powah!, set amidst the socio-political upheaval of the 1980 election, Benu Sankofa (Mudgu's granddaughter) joins a collective of radical poets and together, they use their voices to challenge systemic injustice, wielding words as weapons against the political corruption that they witness every day. 

2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats

Best Lead Performer in a Musical - Top 3

1. LJ Benet - The Lost Boys, A New Musical

20.4% of votes

2. Joshua Henry - Ragtime

15.7% of votes

3. Sam Tutty - Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)

9.7% of votes

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