This year-long education series will focus on essential plays to the repertoire of Black Theater. In each bi-monthly three hour workshop, there will be a reading of an African American theater piece, then afterward a class discussion of literary devices, historical context and cultural themes & issues within the play. The readings will be presented by local actors and the class discussions will be facilitated by area professor…s Dr. Corliss Hayes (CPCC), Dr. Malin Pereira (UNCC) and Dr. Mack Staton (JCSU).
The last reading in the fall semster will be held Dec. 12th from 3-6pm. The Dutchman will be the featured play this go round. Dutchman, Armri Baraka’s shocking one-act play was first presented at the Cherry Lane Theatre in New York City in March, 1964. It won the Obie Award for best off-Broadway play, putting Baraka, who was actively contributing to five other plays at the time, into the public limelight.Dutchman is an emotionally charged and highly symbolic version of the Adam and Eve story, wherein a naive bourgeois black man is murdered by an insane and calculating white seductress, who is coldly preparing for her next victim as the curtain comes down. The emotionally taut, intellectual verbal fencing between Clay (the black Adam) and Lula (a white Eve) spirals irrevocably to the symbolic act of violence that will apparently repeat itself over and over again. Baraka’s play is one of mythical proportions, a ritual drama that has a sociological purpose: to galvanize his audience into revolutionary action. Dutchman is another classic and to bring to life the characters, the reading will feature Donna Scott and Omar El-Amin… you don’t want to miss this one! Plus its…
…FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sunday 3:00pm-6:00pm
@ The Harvey B. Gantt Center
December 12, 2010- Dutchman by Amiri Baraka
*Sponsored by a grant from ASC and North Carolina Arts Council*
