September and after shows:
| ROXBURY, MA. (Sept 20, 2021) – Smoked Oysters revolves around loving and successful Black family members who experience unexpected challenges. Ulysses, a retired Black history professor, refuses to leave his house, even to get the smoked oysters his wife, Arnetta, won’t buy him. She is busy planning their dream trip, a safari in Kenya. Bernard, their ambitious son, asserts that his father’s contrary behaviors are not typical and that his mother should take him to see a doctor. When tragedy strikes, Bernard is the one who must make a difficult decision. performance space: Hibernian Hall is located at 184 Dudley Street Roxbury Smoked Oysters is written by Hibernian Hall’s 2021/22 Playwright In Residence Mary McCullough. It is Hibernian Hall’s first in-person play since 2019. Smoked Oysters will also be recorded and streamed online in December 2021. According to Haris Lefteri, Interim Program Director for Hibernian Hall at Madison Park Development Corporation, “Smoked Oysters allows the audience to peep through a keyhole of what a real family looks like. It is an examination of sickness and health, of family patterns and relationships and, most importantly, a paradoxical mix of energy and exhaustion that seems to seep from each one of the characters’ pores.” “Smoked Oysters is about a tight-knit family, the fragility and futility of making plans, denial of aging, and resistance to “stepping up to the plate.” Candelaria Silva-Collins, a longtime Friend of Hibernian Hall, says, “Families come in different configurations, and they all, eventually, do a generational dance, where roles become blurred and reversed. The family dynamics were recognizable to me, and the dialogue felt like I was eavesdropping on an actual family and not one that had been creatively imagined. I recommend. The play deals with serious issues, but it does not burden.” Tickets: $30 for general admission adults, $15 for students and seniors, and available at www.madison-park.org or at the door. Hibernian Hall is located at 184 Dudley Street, Roxbury, MA 02119. Dates and times are as follow: Friday, September 17, 7:30 pm Saturday, September 18, 7:30 pm Sunday, September 19, 5:30 pm – (Pay-What-You-Can Night) Friday, September 24, 7:30 pm Saturday, September 25, 7:30 pm Sunday, September 26, 5:30 pm About the Playwright: Mary McCullough (she, hers) is the 2021-2022 Playwright-in-Residence at Hibernian Hall, Roxbury, MA, and a co-founder of The Streetfeet Women, a performing and writing company. Streetfeet has toured McCullough’s play, Twilight Time, nationally and internationally. McCullough’s other plays have been produced by ACT-Roxbury, Our Place Theater, Weston Public Schools, and TC Squared Theatre of Cambridge, MA. McCullough’s plays have been read in TC Squared New Works Festival, Roxbury Film Festival Daily Reads, Vermont New Works Festival, Slam-Boston, and the former Theater Cooperative of Somerville, MA New Works Festival. Dramatic works by McCullough can be accessed on the TC Squared’s Volume Up series website. An excerpt of her play, Ballahoo in the Hair Kitchen, is also available for listening on the Boston Podcast Players’ website, Season I. McCullough’s play, A Fine and Dangerous Country, was a semifinalist in the 2020 Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Theater Conference. McCullough’s other creative works have been featured in literary journals, newspapers, the International Center for Women Playwrights, and The Streetfeet Women’s publications. McCullough is an alumnus of Company One Theater’s Playlab Unit and is developing new work in the TC2 PlayLab. She is a member of the International Center for Women Playwrights and the Dramatists Guild. McCullough has a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theater from Goddard College and a Master of Arts in Writing Degree from Northeastern University. About the Director: Dawn M. Simmons (Director) is thrilled to be back at Hibernian Hall. Recent credits include The Nora Theater/Front Porch Arts Collective/Hangar Theatre, (Queens Girl In The World), New Repertory Theatre, ([keyp-ing]), The Nora Theater/WAM Theatre, (Pipeline), Lyric Stage Company, (The Wiz, Warrior Class and Saturday Night Sunday Morning), Hibernian Hall, (With Glittering Eyes) Actors’ Shakespeare Project (Macbeth), The Front Porch Arts Collective/Greater Boston Stage Company (The Three Musketeers), Greater Boston Stage Company (The Irish and How They Got That Way), SpeakEasy Stage Company (Just Cause (The Boston Project)), Men On Boats), Bad Habit Productions (The Real Inspector Hound), Boston Public Works (Hard and Fast: A Love Story), New Exhibition Room (Smile), Fresh Ink Theatre (The Embryos), Dawn is also the Artistic Director of The Front Porch Arts Collective Online: www.frontporcharts.org. ### |
Page Intro
(August 12, 2021) Seasons of theatrical performance dates are listed here. You’ll learn about people in charge of budgets and decisions to bring on Black playwriters and performances in Boston. We lead with Summer Williams then will introduce others because Ms. Williams was the first Black Boston playwriter and director to draw AboutBlackBostonOnline’s attention.
We had been listing music and concert acts when something else caught our eye. It was the play “101 Beneath the Veil” put on stage well over 10 years ago when the BlackBoston.com 1638 portal had yet to be conceived. We were a very young website and had just seen press material about the show. “Photos never seen before are uncovered, bringing an old Black history to life,” the play’s description read. Location: Boston University Black Box theater.
We attended the show in a press coverage capacity. We were just learning how to be press. The show was great and lived up to the hype. The black box theater venue design is the best way to experience a live stage play, in my opinion, if you have never ever gone to one. And this one was our first. We met Ms William briefly at the theater but hardly said much because our correspondent was suffering from a flu. At the time was she was a high school drama teacher at Brookline High School when she put “101 Beneath the Veil” on stage. Later, she co-founded the Company One theater company.
NAMES
RESPECT movie — The hottest Black combo of movie producer and creative right now are arguably Director Liesl Tommy who made the RESPECT movie starring Jennifer Hudson as ARETHA FRANKLIN and Tracey Scott Wilson, the playwright and screenwriter. Liesl s a child of South Africa, growing up under apartheid and raised in a township. Her family immigrated to Newton. She enrolled in Newton North. Tommy has produced episodes of “Insecure,” “Queen Sugar,” and “The Walking Dead.” At Boston’s Huntington Theater she worked on productions of “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and “Top Girls.” She was nominated for a Tony in 2016 and she will direct Daily Show host Trevor Noah’s book project “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.”
Dawn Simmons is the artistic director of the Front Porch Arts Collective and executive director of StageSource, established the Boston Globe in the Living Arts article titled In Boston Theaters, a growing group of Black leaders have decisive role at a pivotal time,” September 27th, 2020. Black administrators are in charge of things. Harvey Young from Chicago became dean of Boston University’s College of Fine Art. Lee Pelton was with Arts Emerson who uses the venues the Emerson Colonial, the Paramount Center and the Cutler Majestic theaters, before recently taking over CEO role at Boston Foundation. Michael Bobbit, entered the theater scene as the first Black artistic director of New Repertory Theater. Today, he is CEO at Mass Humanities. Christopher V. Edwards was named artistic director of Actor’s Shakespeare Project. Harold Steward was named producing co-executive director The Theater Offensive. The Front Porch Theater Collective is a Black theater company.
to be continued as more individuals are identified…
SHOWS & PLAYBILLS
BERKSHIRE THEATER GROUP, Stockbridge MA the Unicorn Theater – Aug 13 – thru Septemer 5th
Nina Simone: Four Women imagines a conversation, often through music, between Simone and three African-American women. The production will be directed and choreographed by Gerry McIntyre who choreographed last summer’s hit Godspell. In the aftermath of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963, Nina Simone rocked the nation with “Four Women,” her tribute in song to the four young girls lost in the tragedy. Scholar and artist Thulani Davis called the song “an instantly accessible analysis of the damning legacy of slavery, that made iconographic the real women we knew and would become.” show link
The first several shows were sold out! The Unicorn Theater, one of the Berkshire Theater Group’s performance spaces, is located in the Stockbridge Historical District about 15 minutes away from the Tanglewood Music Center and summer home of the Boston Pops. Actually, the location is off the road in a repurposed barn surrounded by a white picket fence There is plenty of parking there and it seats 100 people. There is no UBER, LYFT car service in the area when we were there August 18th. Your app will say “no cars available,” so be careful, you can get stranded if you’re not driving. The townies say the one taxi cab company based in Pittsfield takes 2 hours wait time if it comes at all.
ArtsEmerson
The Huntington presents “The Blues Eye,”,”Our Daughters Like Pillars,” and “Common Ground” in 2022.
