New Website!

..continuing in growing as playwright, I needed a place to show the full compass of my work.

With immense thanks to a colleague, a website was created that houses view of all my efforts of work -playwright, artist, blogging, and presentations.

I’m at:

http://www.tkminter.net

You’ll find the continuing journey there..

Smoking Out The Beehive.. serendipities of Reconstruction!

..past plumbs present – in reading about Claude MacKay’s novel, Romance In Marseille, reviewed in today’s New York Times..

The resonance is deeply personal, turning back to remember a commission from the National Portrait Gallery, and the journey of knitting a tapestry of black poets into a frieze, etching their voices and journey..

That work is called Smoking Out The Beehive, and was performed at the National Portrait Gallery in 2013.

Going back to the ‘journal post’ I wrote, about that creating to a quick timeline, I’d forgotten that it, too, came in proximity to a reading of Reconstruction..

Today, as Claude MacKay strides in ‘lost’ words finally affixed to print, Reconstruction comes again into view; on the 24th February, at West End Library at 6:30pm, in Mosaic Theater’s reading series, Mosaic On The Move.. – and I am once again caught off guard by confluence of this synchronicity, out of another February, 7 years ago.

This is the entry of February 6, 2013:

“..in this past October, my play Reconstruction received a reading here in DC, at Fort Fringe. The cast was of spectacular ability, and the audience participated in the ‘after’ dialogue with friction and engagement.

But one of my favorite words was in action throughout: serendipity..

The character of MISS MARIAH, in my play, was performed by Ms Jewell Robinson –who had never read my work before, but was so moved and engaged by my reach, that she, under her other hat, commissioned me to write a piece for presentation.

You see, Ms Robinson is Director Of Public Programming for the National Portrait Gallery; its current exhibit features profiles of poets, and is entitled Poetic Likeness.

The commission, presented to me in November of 2012, was to write something to highlight the work of the black poets in the exhibition, for a presentation in the museum’s offering for Black History Month.

I took the commission, excited and honored to be offered such prestige from this prominent institution..-

In Claude McKay (1889 – 1948) I touched upon the inner conflict inherent in a cage of colonialism; born in Jamaica, subject of Queen Victoria, aspiring, intelligent, aware and precocious, McKay startled British society with his penetrating poems, ‘ballads’ full of melody and the lilt of the island patois; he also presented a slim view of the variant shades of colour -coloureds- who made their life off of ‘bumming’ what they could from their fellow man..

This early identification of the skeins of colour and society, wedge his work, and, after coming to America, fix in his stature, giving him the view between African American slavery, and, in the afterbirth of Emancipation, predations of a deepening “intellectual” ideology, and Negro discontent.

His journey was a wide-ranging struggle to keep to his moral compass; he strode through the Soviet fields of communism (in the early 1900’s), and bridged a connecting tissue of political struggle between Comrades, and American Marxist/Socialists.

McKay’s politics gave virulent voice to the rage of racist abuse of blacks in America; his initial trip into the south was a decimating and defining moment of clarity for him, in the nature of a particular American savagery, where lynching, rape, and burning were handy tools of oppression against people of color..

..I came to appreciate the particular tragedy of Jean Toomer (1894 – 1967), whose mix of color presented him as “white”, but whose conflict of soul constantly brought him against the grain of easy living, and, ultimately, caused him to fracture in himself, unable to fully fit the pieces of his birthright, and paradox, in America.

Langston Hughes (1902 – 1967) I have always admired, but had never been so intimate with; his endeavors in opera (taking his play Troubled Island, and working with the black composer William Grant Still) as well as Broadway (his work with the composer Kurt Weill in creating the libretto for Street Scene) are amazing journeys of artistry in their own right, but in the dexterity of this man’s reach, I found myself awestruck at the diversity of his forum!

Audre Lorde (1934 – 1992) I knew of her activism, but I was not aware of the deep soul of her poetry, or the challenge of her health..

Amiri Baraka (1934 – ) is a name that inflicts, incites, and antagonizes; his work is a ‘slicing’ arc, through styles, polemics, pose, theatre, and modern reaches of rap and hip-hop.

Yusef Komunyakaa (1947 – ) is a deep resonant thinking man whose journey from southern blues, into Vietnam, and further personal tragedy.. is of such breathtaking dimension and succinct dialect that I was subsumed in his storytelling voice, style, knowledge and humanity.

…so; these are the six; these were the companions, in my last two months of silence, during which I found the craft to fit their stories into a length of tapestry that allowed them to speak their own character; entitled: smoking out the beehive.

..it came through immersion; distinct music; distinction of styles; influences and counter-struggle; polyphonic, ultimately; rich. Through whom we are all enriched.”

2nd rehearsal / Not All Canoes Sail Back Home

2nd rehearsal yesterday morning, gathered for Femi Osofisan’s work-in-process, NOT ALL CANOES SAIL BACK HOME, took place in Rehearsal Room 3..

..the space collects not only our artists of Sunday, who are performing as “Maya”, “Maryse”, and “Efua” – but now dancers, Cheikh Bassene and Yerodin Sanders, choreographer, Becky Umeh, and musician, 4 Joseph Ngwa!

Director Chuck Mike suggest that there are “Some songs I’d like to try and get,” but Baba Joseph’s drumming starts ceremony with a startling percussion that whispers down to heart beat, where pulsation suggests itself into the company, up feet, ankles, legs – hips – torso – arms – hands -fingers, and smiles, tickling children hiding inside this Troupe.

Leaps, applause and laughter.. dance is celebration before spoken words of dialogue, and suddenly, we are arrived in Accra!

..a moment there, Ms Umeh is adding nuance, a percussive step in gyration of a heel -to see if it can work in the characterization.. and now something more – and as she details each step, her eyes fast on each artist in turn, she says, “Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy”, tone on the sway, detail to the beat; accent to the smile. “Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy. Listen, you make a mistake you know – Enjoy. Enjoy. Enjoy.”

At a moment’s breath, Mr Mike speaks to the cast – “ok. Let’s set up for that. So that we have our spaces,” but means this more specifically as note of the Stage Manager, Elaine Randolph, who creates the set placements: music stands. Drummer seated. Dancers centered.

Tempo high, rehearsal took off in earnest.

NOT ALL CANOES SAIL BACK HOME is being presented as a work in process at 6pm this evening, 4th February 2020, at the Kennedy Center, in the BOUNDLESS: AFRICA literary series.

..reflections in rehearsal / Not All Canoes Sail Back Home

This morning was the first gathering of an ensemble of women in the Terrace Theatre Rehearsal rooms, who put strong voice to the strong women Femi Osofisan evokes in his work-in-process, Not All Canoes Sail Back Home.

After an initial read through, Chuck Mike, who is directing this presentation in the BOUNDLESS: AFRICA literary series at The Kennedy Center Tuesday evening, allowed a moment’s breath and then asked, “How did it feel in your sprit?”

Mr. Mike’s question is quietly considered,  as the richness of the work speaks through an imagined gathering of Maya Angelou, Maryse Condé, and Efua Sutherland.

In a outline on the concept, Mr. Osofisan states, “As astonishing as it may sound, and by some historical coincidence which I find remarkable, these three women who are considered today to be among the giants of the literary world, lived in Accra at the same time for some years during that turbulent period of the Nkrumah revolution. They were of course only in the early years of their womanhood then, and their careers were in such a budding stage that not even the most gifted soothsayer could have dared predict their future eminence”

Yesenia Iglesias, Temidayo Akibu, and Erica Chamblee speak in the spirt of these great people.

In answering the question of how the experience felt, Ms Chamblee stated, out of the consequence of a historic moment of the play, “Women, out of tragedy, and pain, deciding to alchemize that into triumph, and momentum to do that – must transform the pain, or be dirging forever! It’s about, the future for brown people, after the bottom’s fallen out.”

Tomorrow’s rehearsal brings another layer to the presentation: Gelede dancers. Mr Osofisan outlines that “Gelede dancers appear at various moments in the play, and are a crucial factor in the play’s interpretation.”

..there is palpable power in the shape of this work already, and as each new element is brought into the performance, a narrative of Nigerian history threads into an account that inspires and, yes, invokes a strength of presence for guidance through the dark..

Not All Canoes Sail Back Home!

As part of the 2019–2020 WORLD STAGES season, the Kennedy Center presents the literary mini-series BOUNDLESS: AFRICA on February 4 and 5, 2020.

 

Featuring playwrights, poets, and writers of African heritage living in Africa and the Diaspora including the United States, the series brings to the forefront relevant issues that inform the boundaries separating genres, art forms, geography, and time.

 

NOT ALL CANOES SAIL BACK HOME will be given a reading on February 4th. I am excited to have been asked to moderate the panel discussion afterwards, with the playwright, Femi Osofisan, director, Chuck Mike, and playwright Carlyle Brown!

 

It should be an amazing evening!

..in the hiatus – RECONSTRUCTION

..the quiet is not because nothing is happening..

it’s just that, some things happening, gel best in their own time and quiet..

 

On December 7th in NY, at Theatre Communications Group, Derek Goldman and The Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, hosted a table reading of my play RECONSTRUCTION, directed by Tamilla Woodard.

The depth of my thanks, to everyone in the room – Joy Jones, Marjorie Johnson, Bob Jaffe, Ylfa Edelstein, Kieron Anthony, Nathan Hinton, and Luke Edward Smith – for the candor, focus, engagement, and insightful reflections that supported this work..

And now it seems, onward; Mosaic Theater is interested in presenting this work in their reading series, on February 24th 2020, in DC.

More soon.. – but in the interim, a précise on the play:

 

Reconstruction

In the wake of her mother’s death, a black television exec, Ioni Mitchell, navigates feelings of isolation.. and loss of family – until memories of her mother take to directing Ioni’s focus to a portrait, that has always hung above her bed.. In identifying the artist of the portrait, Ioni discovers choices made in an America of the 1870’s, whose consequences and deeper secrets haunt an unexpected ancestor, in contemporary France..

The play, moving in time between the present and 1875 – America and France – bears Witness to a startling family history of caste and color .. and reveals crucial hard truths attached to the reality of Freedom..

..”expose the question the answer hides.”

..more than ever these days, the answer is: James Baldwin.

Nikita Stewart’s expansive insight in the New York Times is presented as: The 1619 Project, whose endeavor is to examine slavery in the root of our culture. It is offered in detailed process, causing readers to reflect on the still insoluble sutures in the making of a nation.

Yesterday’s Project reading, Why Can’t We Teach Slavery Right In American Schools, woke right into education, leaving errant threads for thinking pulled.

Some public response to this project series suggests that Truth can only be determined by anyone not African American; blinking at that, is to miss the basis for continuing acts of racism.

Such response is the intentionality in dissolving the very frame that Nikita Stewart means us to use as portal, in hopes of excavating deeper and meaningful conversations that do not happen in any uniformity.

 

“Unlike math and reading, states are not required to meet academic content standards for teaching social studies and United States history. That means that there is no consensus on the curriculum around slavery, no uniform recommendation to explain an institution that was debated in the crafting of the Constitution and that has influenced nearly every aspect of American society since.”

 

For me though, along this journey, there is another knot: how do we speak to racism, if we cannot speak race in its format?

How do we articulate the different landscapes of critical thinking, between James Baldwin and Alain Locke.. – without speaking the nuances in their purposed language of shade, in color, caste and class?

 

Sides in this will continue to come about out of their own like purposes; but it is especially in the classroom, through context for Youth and students, where frame for critical thinking must offer scaffolding to grapple questions of incongruent influences, in the conflict of realties and perceptions.