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Ten Square featured on NPR's 848
Posted October 16 in Afrikan Centered Theatre & Culture, News, Events, Reviews, Comments 0
From the Chicago Public Radio's website:
Chicago Playwright Imagines Life After Reparations
Chicago playwright Shepsu Aakhu says he didn’t make up any of the atrocities depicted in his new play. Ten Square imagines what life might be like for African Americans in a society where reparations were actually made for slavery. Aakhu says contemporary and historical political systems helped fuel his dystopic vision – the post-war division of Germany, the cold-war isolation of Cuba and the ongoing conflict in Israel and Palestine. He and lead actress Carla Stillwell spoke with Richard Steele.
Click here to listen to the interview
Audience Feedback on Ten Square
Posted October 13 in News, Performances, Comments 0
MPAACT welcomes your reactions to our current show, Ten Square, a co-production with Pegasus Players. Please leave your thoughts, impressions, and questions below. What moment stood out to you? What did the play leave you thinking about? We would be honored if you'd share your thoughts with us.
Video Clips from Ten Square
Posted October 8 in Performances, Video, Comments 0
Ten Square by Shepsu Aakhu
Directed by Mignon McPherson Nance
Buy Tickets
Clip One features: Leonard House & Nambi E. Kelley
Clip Two features: Carla Stillwell, Andre Teamer, Leonard House and Eddie Jordan, III
An Interview with Shepsu Aakhu on Ten Square
Posted September 15 in Afrikan Centered Theatre & Culture, Events, News, Performances, Comments 0
Lenora Inez Brown is a freelance dramaturg and the Head of Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism at The Theatre School at DePaul University. As "Ten Square's" dramaturg, she posed a few questions to playwright Shepsu Aakhu to gain a sense of how he set about to create the play's dystopian world.
Many futuristic or dystopian worlds often respond to major questions within the current society. What prompted this story for you?
SA: The reparations conversations in the Black community, and how they're hyper- focused on money, caught up in money fantasies like we do with the lottery.
How does, if at all, the recent apology from the US government impact this story?
SA: It feeds the plausibility of it. The country has shown so much movement in my lifetime. It just supports the idea that anything is possible.
This story is set in the future and in an area that was initially considered to be the ideal place. Are there similar places like this in the real world? What triggers their evolution?
SA: America itself is an enormous social experiment. I don't know how idyllic it is for anyone except a very small minority of the population, but it is certainly a daring experiment. For some- the experiment has worked well, for others- not. Ten Square is wrapped up in the potential of America, both positive and negative. I suspect it is the same with most republics, so much potential both positive and negative. France, England, Liberia, Israel, Ghana, all come to mind as similar places with respect to potential.
What else did you consider when creating this fictional world?
It was important to me for this world to be plausible. Not just plausible, but tangible. In storytelling there is this concept called "the suspension of disbelief". This tendency -"not" to believe -can be a small obstacle, or a large one. I wanted it to be as small as possible, so I drew on real world events. The wall is mostly associated with Berlin, but there has also been a lot of discussion of "walling in" the Palestinians in Israel, or the U.S. "walling out" the Illegal aliens migrating from Central America.
The behavior of the state was patterned after Cuba and it's cold War isolation from much of the west. Particularly interesting to me was the propaganda battle between Cuba and the U.S. -- much of which was waged over radio airwaves. I also drew from war propaganda in general- such as the leaflet drops in Iraq and Iran during the war on Terror.
Do any other contemporary political situations influence this play?
Yes. There is the ample perspective provided by the American Indian reservations (Or Native American if you prefer). This relationship between the greater U.S. government and these little pockets of Sovereignty -- ripe with so much contradiction and conflict of interest was fascinating to me. I am intrigued by the idea that the U.S. government surrenders the rule of Constitution law on a reservation and allows the "locals" to self govern, but these local laws cannot extent beyond the reservation itself. So in many places the effect of this sovereignty is the encouragement of the isolation of it residents. But these communities rarely have the resources to take care of their own citizens, so what results is this internal rot of poverty, poor education, and despair. The residents will lose much of their identity and self-determination if they leave the reservation, but if they stay they are relegated to places with few resources, and little ability to provide for their family's basic needs.
What are your thoughts on Utopian communities?
SA: Nice idea...Don't know that they ever really work. The thing that makes people so special is that we have the ability to both perceive and define our experiences. I don't know that you can ever get an experience to be perceived and defined the same way by everyone.
What draws you to create for the theatre?
SA: Storytelling is deep in my family tradition. I am drawn to stories, but I am also drawn to art that one can create with others. Theater and music are the best collaborations I have ever experienced.
What does this piece offer in terms of understanding community?
SA: Some things I have to leave for the audience. Sometimes people ask: "What does the play have to say?" For me I am always fascinated with the question: "What does the audience have to say?" Most of how the play speaks to an audience is defined by what the audience brings into the theatre with them. No matter what your experiences with community, the play will have resonance. What that resonance is can only be defined by what the audience comes to the play with. So, what the play offers differs from person to person. I can only discuss what it offers to me, and frankly I think that's the least interesting view.
MPAACT Receives 14 nominations from the Black Theatre Alliance
Posted August 3 in News, Comments 0
The Black Theatre Alliance announced its nominations for the 2008/09 season today. MPAACT received 14 nominations including Best Play, Best Direction (2), Best Writer (2) and Best Ensemble(3). We would like to thank everyone involved in making our 2008/2009 season a success. We also congratulate company member Nambi E. Kelley for her writer nomination.
For full list of MPAACT nominations click "more"
Chicago Ten Square Restitution Project
Posted July 14 in Events, News, Performances, Comments 0
On June 18, 2009, in a historic move, the US Senate apologized for slavery almost 150 years after the start of the Civil War.
The resolution, passed by voice vote, said it was important for Americans to apologize for slavery “so they can move forward and seek reconciliation, justice, and harmony for all people of the United States.” It was passed on the day before Juneteenth, which commemorates the emancipation of slaves in 1865.
A disclaimer tacked on at the end said nothing in the resolution authorizes or supports reparations for slavery.
“Let us make no mistake: This resolution will not fix lingering injustices,” said Senator Tom Harkin, who first introduced the apology years ago. “While we are proud of this resolution and believe it is long overdue, the real work lies ahead.”
Seven Characters, One Very Tired Actor (or am I an Actress?)
Posted May 5 in News, Performances, Comments 0
So here I am once again on stage with MPAACT. And as usual I’m in a show, Radical Hearsay, that is not traditional. What does she mean by that you ask? MPAACT very rarely if ever produces a nice safe work where an actor can play one roll. Create one character. A sweet little show where the characters have a simple storyline and their last line in the show is something like, “Things always work out for the best.” or “Thank God for you Mama”.
No, no, no, not MPAACT…this little theatre company has to test an actor. Now 13 years ago when I first came to MPAACT these shows were an actors (or am I an actress?) paradise for me. I could jump around and have bodies fall on me and run up and down stairs and play characters that talked about emotionally draining subjects and feel great about the $40,000 I spent on my college theatre education. I was using every actor and actual muscle I had in every show and was loving it.
So here I am, 13 years later playing 7 different characters. And although I still enjoy using my actor muscles, my actual muscles are really not happy with me. Radical Hearsay is a radical departure from what my knees and back want from me. My knees want me to find a nice role where I play one nice fat mama and spend a large portion of the show sitting on some comfortable furniture. My knees are not happy with MPAACT. So, if you come out and you enjoy the show and you love what the theatre company does, that’s great. But just know this…Carla’s knees are not feeling it and if you can’t see the pain on her face then that is truly a testament to her $40,000 theatre education.
Lydia Diamond's Stage Black Rocks the Storefront
Posted February 18 in News, Reviews, Comments 0
February 18, 2009
Kerry Reid - Chicago Tribune Review
Playwright Lydia Diamond's sharp self-deprecating broadside against the worn-out tropes of African-American theater features a saintlike, albeit catatonic, black matriarch on a couch. This dig at the theatrical images of long-suffering black women, such as those found in Lorraine Hansberry's "A Raisin in the Sun," isn't completely original with Diamond. George C. Wolfe covered similar territory in 1986's hit comedy revue "The Colored Museum" with his biting sketch, "The Last-Mama-on-the-Couch Play." But Diamond brings her own unique spin to exploding the stereotypes.
Diamond's "Stage Black," now in a world premiere with MPAACT (Maat Production Association of Afrikan Centered Theatre), also contains elements familiar to anyone who has followed this extraordinarily talented writer over the last several years.
As in "The Gift Horse" and "Stick Fly," Diamond's characters come out of a comfortably upper-middle-class black experience, not inner-city poverty. But in her latest, they don't save the drama for their mama or each other. They let their creator have it with both barrels, and the verbal fusillades offer side-splitting insights into the creative process and the dominant mind-set of theatrical producers in choosing what's "marketable" when it comes to black narratives onstage.
Time Out Chicago Review - Stage Black
Posted February 8 in News, Reviews, Comments 0
http://www.timeout.com/chicago/articles/theater/71169/stage-black
February 5, 2009
Christopher Shea
DOPPEL YOUR GANGER, DOPPEL YOUR FUN
The cast of Stage Black features Diamond’s stand-in.
As a young, black playwright striving to produce relevant material, Lydia Diamond’s got some bones to pick with her audience. Black viewers crave nothing more incendiary from her than woe-begotten tales of buppie strife. And white folks? They just want sagas of sexual abuse. Diamond uses meta means to settle her score, writing herself (or an indistinguishable doppelganger) straight into her script, and hashing things out with characters as she creates them. At times, the antsy audience members she’s appeasing feel more than a bit like straw men (one beguiled white lady hints aloud that black writers just “need to get over that whole slave thing.” Really?). Diamond warns us not to label her self-aware tale “Pirandello-esque.” As her pomo conceit assumes a ludicrousness that threatens to overtake the broken-home story, David Ives gone frantic springs more readily to mind.
Still, Diamond’s got a whip-smart feel for character, and, with MPAACT, a cast that can’t be beat. Diamond’s fear of the archetypical tends to serve her well. Her array of total weirdos, from sleazeball, Boogie Nights Grandpa to sissified, but hetero nerd Sasha, reaches legitimately uncharted waters. Watch in particular for LaNisa Frederick’s Monica: The Writer intends to forge her protagonist as a hearty woman of uncommon get-up-and-go. She instead births a 23-year-old slacker with a warm heart, and a stunted need for Mom. In Frederick’s hands, Monica’s both hopelessly naïve and boisterously authoritative, a joy to watch when she commands center stage, and even better when she regards her family with eye-rolling, adolescent abandon from the sidelines.