Tag: #BroadwayBlack

Posted in Dr. G's Weekly Hot Topics, Feature Spotlight, On The Radar

Dr. G’s Weekly Hot Topics!!

Posted on by drblackfuturefeminist

Nothing like some mid-week goodies!! Check out this week’s Hot Topics, see below:

Preparing for Spring 2023 Festival Season … “Something in the Water” festival is coming back to Virginia Beach, VA in 2023!! On Saturday November 5th, VA Beach native Pharrell Williams along with VA Beach mayor Bobby Dyer made the announcement during Williams inaugural Mighty Dream Forum.

In a statement made by Williams, “The demand for the festival in Virginia Beach and The 757 – among the people – has never wavered. If anything it has only intensified.” Well folks will not have to wait long!! 

The full line up and details will be announced soon. Tickets have gone on sale starting Saturday, 11/5.

This is for you Sneakerheads!! … Need some new sneakers…Going to be visiting New Orleans (NOLA) well I have a spot for you!! Check out the only Black-owned sneaker shop in Kenner (a suburb of the crescent city-New Orleans), Peddlers Ave. Birthed out of a hustle and love for shoes, owner Lawrence Wilright launched the sneaker shop in 2010 with a brick-and-mortar building in 2017.

There’s Power in a Name …One of my favorite authors Octavia E. Butler is getting a school named after her, matter fact, it’s her alma mater. Washington STEAM Multilingual Academy in Pasadena, CA will be renamed “Octavia E. Butler Magnet,” the only school in the nation named after the late author. Adding to the excitement, fellow sci-fi and horror author Tananarive Due exclaims, “It feels like a prophecy fulfilled almost…I mean, here she was learning to dream when she was a child attending the school, and now it’s turned into a school that would have been something beyond her dreams.” The decision to rename the school was first made this spring and comes the same year as the new FX television series based on Butler’s 1979 novel “Kindred” is set to debut (December 13th on Hulu).

PUSD leaders and local officials pose in front of the school’s new name and logo.

New Postage Coming Soon in 2023!!… It was announced late October two Black literary giants Toni Morrison and Ernest J. Gaines will be honored with USPS stamps!! Both trailblazers used their craft and literary gifts to amplify stories that provided a lens into the Black experience in America. The “Toni Morrison” stamp features a photograph of Morrison taken in 2000. Art director Ethel Kessler designed the stamp with photography by Deborah Feingold. And the stamp of “Ernest J. Gaines” features an oil painting of Gaines, based on a 2001 photograph. Mike Ryan designed the stamp with art by Robert Peterson. Greg Breeding served as art director.

Broadway Legacy!!… Broadway has something new to celebrate!! The former Mansfield Theater in New York City will now grace the name of the legendary actress and civil rights activist Lena Horne. Horne becomes the first Black women in American history to have a Broadway theater named in her honor. As noted by her granddaughter Jenny Lumet, “My grandma’s a Bed–Stuy girl, and we’re a New York family. So to have her always be in New York City in the theater district, it means everything.”

Photo credit: Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

New Exhibition in Oakland, CA… A new exhibition project “Angela Davis—Seize the Time” is on view at the Oakland Museum of California. The exhibition provides a lens into Davis’ revolutionary quest for change, her incarceration, and the “Free Angela Davis” movement that followed. It will compose of of artwork, sketches, literature, stickers, buttons, postcards, and letters from the “Free Angela and All Political Prisoners” campaign, Davis’ writings, and other multi-media elements to encapsulate her story. The exhibition was cultivated by the Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, and curated by Donna Gustafson and Gerry Beegan of Rutgers University and Lisa Silberstein and Peggy Monahan of OMCA. “Seize the Time” is on view now through June 11, 2023. 

Posted in A Professor's Thoughts..., Dr. G's Weekly Hot Topics, On The Radar

Dr. G’s Weekly Hot Topics!!

Posted on by drblackfuturefeminist

It’s a new month and the HOT TOPICS are here!! As always a few goodies for you to put on your calendar, add to your grocery list, cue up in your AirPods, dig into and find some more info about, or to make your coffee table stand out!! Check out this week’s hot topics below:

For all my nature lovers or ones that aspire to be, I got a new book that might just pique your interest. Described as a 192-page visual book, author and “Outdoor Afro” founder Rue Mapp compiled various experiences to highlight “Black joy in nature” via Nature Swagger: Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors. Nature Swagger includes portraits and personal essays by Black travelers, highlighting their experiences in the outdoors—from breakthroughs had while scaling the highest mountain in Africa, to learning (and teaching) about sustainability through beekeeping, and beyond. Here is a book that is rewriting the script that Black folks not only celebrate nature, but are active participants in discovering it. For Mapp, she was very intentional “about breaking barriers, literacy, and accessibility.” Nature Swagger: Stories and Visions of Black Joy in the Outdoors hit book stands on November 1st.

Leave me a voicemail… New Exhibition to honor Black and Brown lives that were taken at the hands of police brutality. Created by Iranian-American artist, filmmaker and Even/Odd founder, Mohammad Gorjestani, in collaboration with curator Klaudia Ofwona Draber and art director Neil Hamamoto, “1-800 Happy Birthday” sets out “to transcend the subject matter to new channels both physical and digital and have it live in aesthetic and community in places born from the culture it represents”. Originally as an online voicemail project, callers could leave a message for people who were unjustly killed by law enforcement on their birthdays. Wow!! The power of a message. The exhibition will be on view at WORTHLESSSTUDIOS (7 Knickerbocker Ave. Brooklyn, NY 11237) till January 16th, 2023.

Need a morning pick me up or something for your late night study grind?? Well hip-hop artist and entrepreneur Jadakiss is teaming up with his father and son to bring you the Black-owned coffee brand, Kiss Café . Described as “created with honesty and accessibility” Kiss Café seeks to highlight a legacy of three generations that bring you premium coffee. Now this is right up my alley!! Cannot wait to make my purchase!!

A.S. degree program in Cannabis Studies….Soon students at Olive Harvey College (a predominately Black community college) will be able to get an Associate Degree in “Applied Cannabis Studies a first of its kind in the state of Illinois. The degree was designed for students to gain an advantage in the cannabis industry and offer pathways to acquire the proper licensing. As noted by the president of Olive-Harvey College, Dr. Kimberly Hollingsworth, “Olive-Harvey College has always been a leader in the study of cannabis agriculture and operations because of the exponential job growth in the industry and due to its numerous upward mobility opportunities in the mainstream economy.” For more information about the program, see here.

Photo credit: Olive-Harvey College Hemp House

For all my Theater folks…Check out the 20th-anniversay of Suzan-Lori Parks Broadway revival of Topdog/Underdog starring Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Directed by Kenny Leon, Topdog/Underdog is a “play that chronicles the adult lives of two African-American brothers as they cope with poverty, racism, work, women, and their troubled upbringings. Lincoln lives with Booth, his younger brother, after being thrown out by his wife.”

As noted by Parks about the play, “I think the meaning of the play isn’t just confined to a man’s experience… I think it’s about what it means to be family and, in the biggest sense, the family of man, what it means to be connected with somebody else.”  

You can see Topdog/Underdog at the John Golden Theatre (252 W 45th St. New York, NY 10036) till January 15th, 2023. Purchase tickets here.

As we prepare for the much anticipated sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, writer Ta-Nehisi Coates is giving fans a little taste of the comic book mythos. Set to debut on November 3rd, the “Wakanda Forever: The Official Black Panther Podcast,” hosted by Coates, will bring fans into the making of the larger-than-life sequel.

The podcast will be a 6-episode series that features interviews with director Ryan Coogler, producer Kevin Feige, cast member Angela Bassett, and much more. The first three episodes will premiere on November 3rd (in advance of the film) with the remaining episodes dropping weekly in January 2023 connecting to the 5-year anniversary of the first film, Black Panther.

“Wakanda Forever: The Official Black Panther Podcast,” is a production of Proximity Media in partnership with Marvel Studios, Marvel Entertainment, and The Walt Disney Studios. The series is produced by Paola Mardo. Executive Producers are Ryan Coogler, Zinzi Coogler, Sev Ohanian, and Paola Mardo. 

For a quick preview, check it out here:

You can tune into the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Pocket Casts, and Pandora!

See you on the next round!! ~Dr. G

Posted in On The Radar

Re-Opening of Broadway with a Fresh New Line-up!!

Posted on by drblackfuturefeminist

The curtains will rise again, this Fall, as Broadway theaters will be opening its doors after being shutdown for a year and half due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A select new group of plays have been scheduled to premiere through the rest of this year!! But there is more….all seven plays on the fall line-up are by Black playwriters!! Theaters biggest stage will highlight a wide variety of stories including family comedy, drama, hope, survival, and much more! Check out the full line-up below:

  • Pass Over: Setting the tone and beginning the season is playwright Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu’s three-person play Pass Over directed by Danya Taymor.

A riff on Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot’ following two black men killing time on a street corner when a white man enters their space.

  • Chicken & Biscuits: Hitting the Broadway stage for the time, Douglas Lyons new play will also feature the youngest Black director in Broadway’s 250+ year history, 27-year-old Zhailon Levingston

The Jenkins family is coming together to celebrate the life of their father — hopefully without killing each other. But any hopes for a peaceful reunion unravel when a family secret shows up at the funeral.

  • Lackawanna Blues: Tony Award winner Ruben Santiago-Hudson writes, directs, and performs his solo play in which he “embodies more than 20 vibrant characters, creating a richly textured reminiscence that’s inspiring, uplifting and right at home on Broadway.”

Time: 1956. Place: Lackawanna, NY. Would-be philosophers, petty hustlers, lost souls, and abandoned lovers all find refuge, comfort and nourishment at 32 Wasson Avenue, a boarding house where the landlady, Miss Rachel – “Nanny” – rules with the embracing spirit of both earth mother and drill sergeant.

  • Thoughts of a Colored Man: With an ALL-STAR cast ensemble (Dyllón Burnside, Bryan Terrell Clark, Da’vinchi, Luke James, Forrest Mcclendon, Tristan “Mack” Wilds and Keith David), playwright Keenan Scott II and director Steve H. Broadnax III brings to the stage “a mosaic of the inner lives of Black men and heralds the arrival of an essential new voice to the American theater.”

Over the course of a single day in the pulsing heart of Brooklyn, the hopes, sorrows, fears, and joys of seven men reverberate far beyond the barbershops and basketball courts of their community. Vulnerable and vibrant, raw and alive — these are the Thoughts of a Color Man.

  • Trouble in Mind: Originally produced off-Broadway in 1955, a Broadway transfer of the play was announced in 1957, but the production never happened. The acclaimed play from Alice Childress makes its Broadway debut with director Charles Wright-Randolph at the helm.

Wiletta Mayer, an African American actress of a certain age, has spent her career playing stereotypes, trapped on a merry-go-round of mammies, maids, and other menials. The curtain rises on the first day of rehearsal for Chaos in Belleville, a Broadway-bound play that tackles the harsh truths of racism in America. But when those truths spill out of the play and into the rehearsal hall, will Wiletta’s insistence on her dignity cost her the work she desperately needs?

  • Clyde’s: A new play from two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage and director Kate Whoriskey that explores second-chances, reclamation, and what it means to dream.

A truck stop sandwich shop offers its formerly incarcerated kitchen staff a shot at redemption. Even as the shop’s callous owner tries to keep them under her thumb, the staff members are given purpose and permission to dream by their shared quest to create the perfect sandwich.

  • Skeleton Crew: Written by Dominique Morisseau and directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Skeleton Crew navigates power dynamics and the power of decision-making.

A makeshift family of workers at the last exporting auto plant in the city navigate the possibility of foreclosure. Power dynamics shift and they are pushed to the limits of survival. The final play of Dominique Morisseau’s Detroit trilogy.

Nothing like seeing Black voices and stories take center stage. As noted by Broadway Black founder Drew Shade,

Seven Black shows coming to Broadway — it’s unprecedented. It’s what we would like to see, especially after the racial reckoning we’ve had in this society over the past year, and more specifically in the theater industry. But we also have to be realistic about the placement of the shows. We have to be realistic about what this may mean for Black artists going forward.

This fall theater season is going to be FIRE!! And I look forward to catching a few of these shows in the coming months!!