News Ticker

Kara Harmon

The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar)

March 14, 2025

While there are plenty of laughs in "The Great Privation," we never lose sight of the fact the subject matter has roots in the history of medical exploitation. Previous mainstream pieces have appeared in recent years: Rebecca Skloot’s #1 New York Times bestseller, "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks," about a black woman whose cells were taken without her consent and unbeknownst to her contributed to numerous medical breakthroughs, and "Behind The Sheet," Charly Evon Simpson’s 2019 play presented by Ensemble Studio Theatre, loosely based on the story of J. Marion Simms, a gynecology pioneer whose progress (and success) was built on the suffering of enslaved women. [more]

Cullud Wattah

November 27, 2021

All of us are probably aware of the problems of polluted water in Flint, Michigan, owing to civic neglect. However, it might shock you to know that it is still going on. Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winning play, "Cullud Wattah," takes on this crisis through the prism of one family of three generations of Black women living in the same house. The material is powerful and explosive. We learn a great deal about the crisis as well as see how it personally affects all five of these women in one family. Director Candis C. Jones has obtained the kind of performances from her ensemble cast that makes you feel that these actresses have lived and worked together for years when they may have never met before now. [more]

Lockdown

May 7, 2019

Ernie Morris is a middle-aged widowed African-American writer who arrives  at a contemporary unnamed prison to be a volunteer. A young corrections officer explains in great detail all of the rules and regulations. The inmate she becomes closest to is James “Hakeem” Jamerson, nicknamed Wise. He is a 62-year-old African-American man who has been incarcerated for 46 years for shooting and killing a police officer during a pawn shop holdup when he was 16. Over his many years of imprisonment, he’s matured, having gotten a college degree and leading an education program. He’s been continually turned down for parole and Ernie agrees to help him with his statement for the next parole board hearing. Will they succeed? [more]