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"

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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.

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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.

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.