| | Hello, Dolly!
More than a month ago I got an email from local playwright Robert Henry Johnson. I met Robert briefly after seeing a reading of his play The Othello Papers at the 2009 Bay Area Playwrights Festival. The best way to describe the play is uproarious. I can still clearly see the actors on stage snorting coke (they were miming) in between lines (get it?). And let me tell you it was shockingly hysterical that juxtaposition.
The play has an exciting premise, the black Shakespearean characters decide to form a sort of caucus for more agency and leave their respective plays behind to do so which causes havoc throughout the cannon as other characters are unable to perform their plays.
All this to say I was delighted when I got that email from Robert.
The email was an invitation. An invitation to participate in a festival.
You see Robert is in residency at African American Art and Culture Complex and for a while he's been walking past an exhibit on dolls in the complex's gallery. Dolls. A room filled with African and African American dolls. And Robert wondered, what would these dolls say if they could speak.
Robert has asked several playwrights (including yours truly) to go see the exhibit and then write something in response to it. A scene, a monologue, whathaveyou.
I particularly liked the paper dolls on display. They reminded me of how my mother made us paper dolls by cutting out models from the JC Penny catalog.
And I liked the historical information about dolls. How some dolls were given to a pregnant mother as a way to ensure a healthy child and then the doll became the child's plaything when it was born. Dolls tell us who we are. They allow us to play, learn.
I ended up writing a monologue/poem of sorts for the festival. Two characters, even though one is silent the entire time. So if you're here in the Bay Area this Thursday and Friday, come check out the festival. Here's the Facebook invite and the details are:
Where: African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton (at Webster), San Francisco
When: Thursday, April 26 & Friday, April 27--8pm
The festival is free. But since they have limited seating, RSVP at 415.987.2387.
See you there!
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| | Posted 4/24/2012 9:57 AM - 96 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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