Vera Katz called me a week ago to give me the heads up on a reading she’s directing of a new work by Caleen Sinette Jennings. My ears immediately perked up. Caleen is a very talented playwright. I’ve shared the one-act festival stage with her at Source Theatre here in DC. There were those nights [...]
I remember my vice principle in high school patroling the halls snapping the order to “Get to Class!” Well that’s where school stops and life-learning starts. Last night I treated myself (i.e., stepped away from the laptop to engage in life), to a workshop reading of Anu Yadav’s Classlines, a series of monologues or stories [...]
DC has a weird relationship with its artists. It balances on amusement and indifference. You’re considered not-good-enough for the big time if you stay; forgotten as home town talent if you leave. Even our own Mayor Fenty was getting kudos for scoring Chicago’s Kanye West during the inaugural festivities; not for hometown or even home-born [...]
It’s always interesting to see which arts medium the chairs of the National Endowment for the Arts will come from. This year it’s the theater. The announcement was made today that Broadway producer Rocco Landesman was nominated for the chair of the NEA following poet and literary critic/scholar Dana Gioia who resigned in January and [...]
United States Post Office releases Richard Wright stamp in Chicago When Richard Wright came to Chicago from the South, he worked as a postman just before his first book was published. JaBen Early plays Bigger Thomas in Richard Wright’s adaptation of his first novel Native Son for the The American Century Theatre directed by Bob [...]
March 8 was International Women’s Day. International Women’s Day celebrates the economic, political and social achievements of women past and present. In some countries like China, Vietnam, Russia, and Bulgaria, it’s an international holiday. This year’s United Nations global theme is woman and men united to end violence against women and girls. Did Chris Brown [...]
My first reading of the day was below the fold of the Washington Post newspaper: actress, cabaret singer, dancer, performer Eartha Kitt (1927 – 2009), and Nobel laureate playwright Harold Pinter (1930 – 2009) took their final bows during the Christmas Holiday. Both died of cancer. EARTHA KITT My first introduction to Eartha Kitt was [...]
If anyone understood the American working man or woman it was Studs Terkel. He listened and talked with them. Didn’t matter who they were, what they did, famous, infamous, or just another face in the crowd. The author, journalist, activist, historian, and radio host died today at the age of 96. Studs was always about [...]
My mother was born in San Juan. So I’m Puerto Rican, Jewish, colored, and married to a white woman. When I move into a neighborhood, people start running in four ways at the same time. I was dead serious when I suggested Sammy Davis, Jr. should be among the honored for his achievements in entertainment, [...]
Talk about drama. The stage is set. The lighting is adjusted. The sound checks are done. And now we’re missing one of the cast for tonight’s presidential debate – John McCain. If nothing else, McCain does have a flair for the dramatic. But drama is something we don’t need in a President. Yes. I’m taking [...]
