News
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.
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.
Mignon McPherson Nance Interview
Posted January 30 in News, Comments 0
January 29, 2009
By MYRNA PETLICKI Contributor
You can't please everyone but that doesn't stop a playwright from trying in Lydia R. Diamond's "Stage Black." Oak Park director Mignon McPherson Nance thinks the early work by the acclaimed writer of such plays as "The Bluest Eye" and "The Gift Horse" might come close to achieving that goal, though. McPherson Nance directs the world premiere of "Stage Black" for Maat Production Association of African Centered Theatre, through March 1 at Victory Gardens Greenhouse Theatre.
"It's basically the story of this writer who wants to write a play that will sell," McPherson Nance said. "There are certain things that are in typical black plays that sell. There's usually a momma and a couch. Through the course of the play, her characters rebel against being forced into these boxes that aren't real. It's a funny kind of interplay between the writer and her characters as they struggle against her trying to write this sellable play and encouraging her to write what's real."
McPherson Nance can't remember a defining moment that drew her to theater. "I grew up on the South Side of Chicago and I didn't have a lot of exposure to theater as a child or in school," she related. "But I always in my play as a child was acting out things -- watching TV shows that I liked and then recreating them."
Stage Black: Recommended in Chicago Reader
Posted January 30 in News, Reviews, Comments 0
Friday, January 30, 2009
Review by Zac Thompson
In Lydia Diamond's play, a bright, underfunded African-American playwright sets out to write a drama about an affluent black family, but is constantly interrupted by the characters, who have their own ideas about how they'd like to be portrayed. Protective of their complexity, the family members--an unruly lot, including a spunky lesbian daughter, dyspeptic older brother, and suave grandfather--suspect the writer of wanting to turn them into easily marketable stereotypes (angry young black man, wizened gramps, hypersexualized vamp). Diamond's razor-sharp skewering of what audiences expect from black playwrights—historical pieces about slavery or family comedies with "a big momma on the couch"--is bitterly funny and saves the piece from the tedious self-indulgence that often befalls writing about writing. Mignon McPherson Nance's staging for MPAACT is pitch-perfect, with a fluid style somewhere between satire, realism, and Pirandello.
Heather Ireland: Stage Black brings me full circle with MPAACT
Posted January 21 in News, Performances, Comments 1
The year was 1991. A young University of Illinois co-ed packs her things and prepares for graduation day. She reflects fondly on her past four years here and remembers all of the house music, high-top fades, asymmetrical hair cuts all-nighters (studying and watching tapes of The Cosby Show and A Different World) and good times that have been her college days. The fondest memories by far? Times spent at “The Black House” dissecting our diasporadic experiences and a performing in a little play called A House Divided. Expertly produced by some young ambitious brothers with high theatre aspirations.
While rolling up her Georgia O’Keefe posters and gently putting her Guy, Stevie Wonder and Sade cassettes in an Esprit bag, she gets a call. “We’re in the car with Reggie. He says don’t move.” Moments later her dorm room is filled with Rob Goodwin (fellow future DePaul MFA grad and Uof C Theatre teacher), Bill Carroll (her English 263 – Theatre of the Black Experience instructor), and Reggie Lawrence (future Shepsu Aakhu and MPAACT head-brother-in-charge). They all talk about the potentially transformative power of theatre from an AfriKan perspective, the vital importance of breathing, the essence of being and spiritually becoming. They meet later that summer with other like minds in Chicago in an old funeral home. Not a harbinger of things to come.
Months later she finds herself in the back of a health food store on Chicago’s south side, dropping wonderful rhymes with wonderful people about blackness and beauty and culture. She stopped eating meat - temporarily. She made life-long friends. She was deep. She was essential. She was in the embryonic stages of would become what you now know as MPAACT – full seasons of culturally relevant plays and a veritable movement of theatre by us and all about us.
She returns full circle (after a short return for 2000’s The Abesha Conspiracy) to all that ever was and ever will be MPAACT. Her role as Writer in Stage Black has offered her time for reflection (What IS the state of black theater and the arts? How has her own vision changed and grown? What can we as artists do? Who do we write, act and create for? Will our best efforts, poetic dreams and deep inner thoughts make us money? And does it matter?). As a writer of children’s plays, playing a writer in this show proves a little trippy at times (hey – who’s reflecting who here?). But returning to her roots with her feet firmly grounded in all that she began with and has collected on the way, she is able to look about and feel connected and remember the whys of it all with just a glance and a deep breath or two.
Nearly twenty years later (cough) some of the faces have changed, but the spirit remains the same. The seeds of poetry and music and rhythm and messages and community and life and love continue to grow strong through everyone involved. Though she now enjoys her chicken wings and turkey burgers, and though she now has her own children’s theater projects to manage and grow she still breathes and lives those seeds through all of her work, which will always belong to all of us.
Tua-u and write on . . .
Lydia R. Diamond talks Writing and Stage Black
Posted January 19 in News, Performances, Comments 0
MPAACT Artistic Associate Carla Stillwell had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Lydia R. Diamond, writer of MPAACT’s current production Stage Black. Here are her thoughts or writing for the stage, getting produced and growing in her craft.
What was the first thing you ever wrote?
A romance novel at twelve. It was about myself and Joaquin Andujar who was a Puerto Rican pitcherfor the St. Louis Cardinals and we would live in a big house. It was a little sexy for a twelve year old. I guess it was a precursor to plays because I used to act it out with my Barbie dolls.
What was your first production?
You guys did my first not self produced production. It was The Inside. That’s why this production is special for me because I still credit MPAACT for giving me my first professional production.
You write both original works and adaptations, how is the writing of an adaptation different from an original pieces?
Adaptation is much more difficult. I think my only true adaptation was Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye. I think the process of adapting is hard because you’re trying to fit in to a hundred pages or fewer a work that existed in another dimension with considerably more words. And then there is the additional emotional burden of honoring the work that you are adapting.
Who helped or hindered you in your early career?
I don’t think it’s fair to say anyone hindered me as fabulously as things have gone. A lot of different people helped me in a lot of different ways. MPAACT helped me because I was not used to being produced so I’m sure I stepped on toes all the time because I was used to producing myself, but that’s a learning curve…learning how to be produced. Because I had the MPAACT credit and had produced myself…because these things were on my resume…I was able to use that to begin my relationship with Chicago Dramatist and Dramatist was instrumental in the next steps in my development as a playwright. The culture of Chicago theatre helped me as well. And Mignon [McPherson Nance], who is directing Stage Black has always been one of my favorite directors and dramaturg and to that end she has always influenced my work and made me a better playwright.
Most people now know you as a playwright. I know you as an actress. How did the experience of acting shape you as a writer?
I teach a lot of actors to write plays now and I think it [having been an actor] makes you a better playwright. I think we have it in our bones what dramatic structures is. We respect actors. But for me, my experiences as an actor helped me understand that I am truly a playwright; that writing the plays made me feel empowered in a way that acting never did.
What themes/ideas/concepts keep recurring in your writing?
It’s always the same thing…It’s always the same things…It’s always relationships, race, class. Even in my adaptations. These are the things that perplex me…the issues we can’t seem to resolve nationally.
Are these the things that inspire you as a writer?
I find that it’s shifting for me since I’ve become a mother. I think that my concern for and protectiveness of my child changes my focus from examining the world to examining relationships. I find that my in [road] to the work is now more character driven.
Tell us about Stage Black?
What to say…Well I wrote this play a long time ago…about fifteen years ago. I wrote it before I was even married. The challenge of this process was to honor the young woman that wrote Stage Black then and to be ok with that. I know I wouldn’t like it if someone fifteen or twenty years older came in and rewrote my play. I mean you get better with every play you write. I did want to do some re-writes, but I still wanted to honor the young women that wrote Stage Black years ago. This was an important learning opportunity for me too.
There is always a wit to your work, and Stage Black is hilarious, can you speak to how you use wit and humor in your work?
Thank you, it is a huge complement that you find it witty. I know I think it’s funny in my head.
Do you fancy yourself a closet comedian?
No, no, no…not even a little bit. Only in my own head. I think my humor and wit come out of situations and character development. I’m not funny at all. I do very badly at cocktail parties.
Why MPAACT?
What do you mean why MPAACT?
Why did you say hey, let me give this theatre company my play?
Oh, well I think that MPAACT is a company that has very strong sense that it is Afrikan Centered…MPAACT develops new work…these are all the things that are important to me. And MPAACT is the first company that saw something in me and I will always appreciate that.
What is the most useful advice you ever received about being a writer?
Well there are two things…My friend Lisa Dillman told me a long time ago that my success can be marked by the number of rejection letters. That stayed with me because I know that when I get a rejection letter I know that I’m a player. That I’m putting my work out there and that is the first step. And Derrick Walcott my teacher at BU said something very beautiful to me…he says that you should be careful how you walk through the applause.
Stage Black runs January 16 through March 1st. Click here for more information.
Lydia Diamond Biography
Posted December 22 in News, Comments 0
Lydia Diamond’s plays include: The Gift Horse, The Goodman (Theodore Ward 1st Place, Kesselring Prize 2nd Place); The Bluest Eye, Steppenwolf (World Premiere, Black Arts Alliance Image Award – Best New Play), New Vic, Theatre Alliance, Plowshares, Playmakers Rep, Horizon Theatre Co., Freedom Theatre, Providence Black Rep, Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, Long Wharf/Hartford Stage, Company One (Elliot Norton – Best Fringe Production ’08 Nomination), and Jubilee Theatre; Voyeurs de Venus, Chicago Dramatists (’06 Joseph Jefferson Award – Best New Work, ‘06 Black Theatre Alliance Award – Best Writing), Company One (Fall, ’08); Stick Fly (’08 Susan Smith Blackburn Finalist), Congo Square (World Premiere, ’06 BTAA – Best Play, ’06 Joseph Jeff Nomination – Best New Work), True Colors, The McCarter, L.A. Theatre Works, and Contemporary American Theatre Festival; Harriet Jacobs, Steppenwolf (World Premiere), Staged Readings at Old Vic, U.K., and The Kennedy Center; Stage Black, Cincinnati Arts Consortium, MPAACT (‘09); and The Inside, MPAACT Theatre Co. and Nat’l Tour. Lydia is currently working on commissions for The McCarter, Victory Gardens/Humana, and Huntington Theatre Companies. The Bluest Eye, The Gift Horse, and Stage Black are published by Dramatic Publishing. The Gift Horse is anthologized in Northwestern University Press’ 7 Black Plays, ed. Chuck Smith. Stick Fly, published 2009, Northwestern University Press. Lydia holds a B.S. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University, is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists, a 2006-2007 Huntington Playwright Fellow, and an ’07/’08 TCG/NEA playwright in residence at The Steppenwolf, and is a TCG Board Member. Lydia Diamond has taught at Columbia College Chicago, DePaul University, Loyola, and is currently on faculty at Boston University.