Nya Bowman Archives - TheaterScene.net

Nya Bowman

a photograph / lovers in motion

February 21, 2020

Now that The Public Theater’s 2019 revival of the late Nzotake Shange’s "for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf" has been critically acclaimed once again, The Negro Ensemble Company is reviving her only dialogue play, "a photograph / lovers in motion," in a new version. Originally produced at The Public Theater in 1977 as "a photograph / lovers in cruelty," the play was later revised and renamed for a 1982 production at the Houston Ensemble Theatre. The new version adapted and directed by Ifa Bayeza, the playwright’s sister, makes the play more of a choreopoem like Shange’s other plays and shifts the focus from the photographer Sean David to Michael, a female poet and dancer, adding poems for her to recite. The two titles of the play are still applicable as according to the director the relationship between Sean and Michael is both a duel and a duet. [more]

The Deborah Zall Project: “In the Company of Women” 2017

May 21, 2017

All but one of Zall’s works were solos and all were based on famous literary figures: “George Sand” (ruminating on her lost love, Chopin), “Mary Tyrone” (from "Long Day’s Journey Into Night" fighting her addiction while remembering her childhood), “Sonnet” (to an Edna St. Vincent Millay sonnet about obsessing over a lost love), “Amanda” (the mother in "A Glass Menagerie" sadly musing over her ball gown) and “Shadow of Her Sister” (two sisters from "The House of Bernarda Alba" battle to the death with dark Catholic imagery overlaying the internecine war). [more]

The Deborah Zall Project: “In the Company of Women”

May 26, 2015

Deborah Zall has been a presence in the modern dance scene, specifically in the Martha Graham orbit, for decades. Recently, after years of relative obscurity, she has emerged as an important choreographer, the keeper of the dramatic Graham tradition. Several current and former Graham dancers, wanting new experiences and challenges, asked Ms. Zall to stage some of her dramatic solos for them. The result was an evening of intriguing small-scale works by Ms. Zall with the addition of a solo created by Graham veteran Kenneth Topping which provided a bit of comic relief, albeit sardonic comic relief. [more]