2008 - 2017 Play Development Dramaturgy

In 2008, I was a young eager passionate junior faculty member at Howard University and my my artistic practice would easily be characterized as multi-hyphenate long before the popularity of the terms use today. In addition to writing plays, I acted on both TV and stage, did scholarly & production dramaturgy and directed as well.

Having fallen in love with the deep curiosity and research that play development dramaturgy demanded I knew I wanted to support other playwrights by creating a professional safe and creative environment to help my peers develop their work.

The summer of 2008 I codified a play development process and implemented it in the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University with a program I called Visiting Playwrights. In November 2008 I hit the ground running with Nikkole Salter participating as the first visiting playwright. Ironically, Salter would be the final playwright participant in 2017 when the Visiting Playwrights Program would end.

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Below are a few blog posts that document the powerful play development work I and a team of colleagues and students fostered through the Visiting Playwrights...

Nubia Kai on the Impact of Visiting Playwrights

(2008) Completing a full-length play is an exhilarating and gratifying experience, however, this euphoria of accomplishment is often short lived when faced with the challenges of rewriting, editing, honing, and refining the script into a polished dramatic text. Completing the writing of a play is always the first draft. Unlike poetry or short fiction, you cannot call down your intuitional muses and get it right the first time, because the first time doesn’t begin until the actors breathe life into the script. The writing of a play, then, can more accurately be called the preliminary stage of playwriting. It is the rudimentary outline on a wooden log or marble slab that the playwright must carve into a finished product.

The Longman Anthology of Drama and Theater states. “Look carefully at the spelling of playwright. The word is not spelled “playwrite,” that is, one who writes plays. Playwright stems from an ancient Saxon word, wrytha, meaning a worker or craftsman, such as a “boatwright” or wheelwright. Surely a playwright is one who crafts, shapes, and purposefully constructs the story for maximum effect.”

Poetry flows through the veins and out of the pen of the poet like a river; fiction collects the rivers and deposits them into the sea. A play moves with the same lyrical fluidity but stops abruptly at the bridge where it crosses over from the page to the stage. Here is where the playwright makes the transition from poet to master craftsperson. Here is where the collaborative effort between playwright, director and actors becomes crucial to the playwriting process. Of the four major genres of literature—poetry, fiction, essays and drama—drama demands the greatest amount of ingenuity, calculation, conciseness, and virtuosity. The language, the rhythm, the cadence, the plot, themes, and characterizations must be precisely elucidated. Until the playwright hears the play aloud, she cannot make these assessments and determinations; in short, she cannot complete the dramatic text.

Since drama is action, it can only be fully comprehended and molded within an active context. Stage readings, such as the Playwrights in Process series at Howard University’s Department of Theatre Arts, provides fledgling as well as established playwrights the opportunity to workshop their plays before an audience of actors, playwrights and theatre professionals.I have often attended stage readings where theatre professionals seemed hesitant to express their true feelings about a play, because they did not want to hurt the feelings or discourage the efforts of the playwright. Such dishonesty in the long run does more damage to the playwright who fails to get a genuine constructive criticism of her work.

Fortunately, Howard students and faculty will politely voice their opinions about a text without reservation. This was demonstrated when Nikkole Salter, a Howard alumni and highly acclaimed performer and playwright, recently had a stage reading of her play-in-progress Repairing A Nation at Howard University’s ETS Theatre.First of all, the Howard acting students and older professional actors did an excellent job of bringing Salter’s characters to life. However, the comments offered after the reading focused on the script.

Led by Professor Denise Hart, the coordinator of the Playwrights in Process series, faculty and students were encouraged to express their views about the play’s structure, style, objectives, themes, characterizations, etc. We all concluded that the play had great potential but wasn’t finished; it needed some structural changes, textual clarity, more character development and plot adjustments. Once these changes are made, we expect to see a wonderful play.

~by Professor Nubia Kai

2008 Playwright - Nikkole Salter

(2008) Starting November 6th through November 8th in the Department of Theatre Arts we are thrilled to be able to host co-author and actress of the off-Broadway hit "In the Continuum," Nikkole Salter. Nikkole also happens to be an alumna of the department.

Nikkole will be in residence as a part of our Visiting Playwrights Series. She'll be working on her new play, "Repairing a Nation." The students and the department will benefit greatly from a first hand experience with the process of new play development. The staged reading will be directed by Professor Tamera Izlar and will be open to the public on Saturday November 8th at 6pm in Room 3001 in the Fine Arts Building at Howard University.

We're looking forward to having Nikkole continue to develop her work here at her alma mater. She'll also be posting on this blog while she's in residence so check back for her tips and insights on November 6, 7, and 8th.

Remember, creativity is life!

Professor Denise J. Hart

Interview With Playwright Nikkole Salter

(2008) I recently had a chance to interview Nikkole. Here's what she had to say:

Tell me about your career accomplishments.

OBIE award winning playwright and actress (2006) for IN THE CONTINUUM
Helen Hayes nomination Best Actress (2006) for IN THE CONTINUUM
Black Theatre Alliance Best Lead Actress in a Play nomination (2006)
Black Theatre Alliance Best Writing of a Play nomination (2006)
NY Outer Critics John Gassner Award for Best New American Play (2005)
NY Times Best Plays of 2005 (one of four)
Theatre Hall of Fame Seldes-Kanin Fellowship (2006)

How do you stay motivated in the competitive arenas of acting and writing?

Motivated. Competitive. Huh. I run to friends for perspective and intervention. I continue to remind myself that my ideas have value and my story – my perspective – is just as stage worthy as anyone else’s. I cry. I give up. I start over again. I keep on going. I read the Bible and the Tao… they help me get through moments of fear, frustration and doubt… I journal, I blog… I remind myself that I have been called to this path, and that God never gives a call without a light… I remind myself that giving is the nature of life, and that if I continue to give, if I continue to create, I will be more than alright. As for competition… I remind myself that there’s enough fabulousness for everybody to have some… for everybody to have a lot. I prepare and do my work with as much excellence as I can muster. I remind myself that the best strategy sometimes is to be the last woman standing… I keep going. I build my business and think outside the box and away from the conveyor belt… I have fun right where I am. I surround myself with people who see the greatness in me, and can see beyond what I see.

What’s the project you’re most proud of working on or being a part of?

IN THE CONTINUUM… THE CONTINUUM PROJECT… REPAIRING A NATION. I’m really blessed to have been afforded (and taken) the opportunity to merge what I care about and am most concerned with, with my talents and gifts.

What are your other life’s passions?

Cooking. I know, right! I’m more domestic than I’d ever admit. Teaching.

What inspired you to pursue these passions?

My mother. We grew up … poor… we weren’t impoverished, we were blessed, and broke… She told me, “You already know what it’s like to be broke, so you don’t have to be afraid of it. But if you’re going to be broke, then you might as well be doing what you want to do. And I promise you, if you do what you love, and you do it well, the money will come.” She didn’t separate work and fun… work and passion. She showed me how they can be one in the same.

How do you use one of your passions to make an impact in the world?

I don’t know if they do. I know they’ve had an impact on some people because they’ve told me so. My work isn’t global in focus right now. It’s communal. It’s about you and me right here, right now. I don’t think about impacting the world, I think about impacting my community. I hope my work points to and touches those places in us that are beyond words… those places that are the reason why we must speak… I hope people who engage me are challenged, I hope they burst open… I hope they are ushered into the space within themselves where they can let it all come out.

How do you see your work healing, inspiring and motivating others?

I see my work making people laugh. Laughter is the best. I see my work helping people go further with their empathy by reminding them that we are all connected. I see my work honoring perspectives that we don’t get to see dramatized or appreciated in the mainstream too often. I see my work showing ‘regular’ (I hate that word, but my vocabulary fails me right now) people that their stories are worthy of the written word, even if their cause falls short of CNN’s primetime coverage standard. Even if others say that it’s not ‘exotic’ or ‘downtrodden’ enough. Even if it’s not philanthropically ‘hot’ enough to be taken up by some NGO, or some politician, or some celebrity. Through me everyone else will have a place to time-capsule the essence of their experience, of our experience.

How do you stay motivated in general?

I don’t know that I stay motivated all the time. It ebbs and flows. I cry. I flail. I complain. I fall down, and I let Donnie McClurkin get me back up again. I call my mama. I pray. I keep a gratitude journal to remember how blessed I am, and how taken care of I’ve always been. I battle the urge to relive the great moments of my life, or to fantasize about the future. I try to do the work. No point in spending energy getting motivated. Sometimes, by the time that happens, I could’ve wrote 5 scenes and a haiku.

What have been your greatest challenges in pursuing your passion?

The greatest challenge is maintaining my faith, confidence and commitment. I am re-committing to do the art every day. It’s particularly hard to do when no one is calling me and no one is paying me.

What’s your vision for the future?

Running The Continuum Project’s annual programs, while having a series regular or recurring role on a cable network show. Writing one play a year that has a ready-made avenue for production and publication. Touring theatre departments at HBCUs to help cultivate the artist-preneurs of the future.

What words of wisdom can you offer to other women who want to pursue their passion?

Oh, there are so many words of wisdom, but they don’t mean anything unless they have been digested and synthesized…unless they are helpful. I have a set of them that I try to remember to whip out before I delve into the pits of whiny despair and helpless frustration…

Keep going in the direction of your inner compass. Have faith. Plan and work your plan, but leave room for God’s plan. Flexible is better than breakable. Fear not. Know thyself… or at least try to get to know thyself. Do not despise the conditions of your life – use them. Laugh and “just do it”. Or, in the words of Paulo Coelho:

“The Warrior of the Light sometimes behaves like water, flowing around the obstacles he encounters.

Occasionally, resistance might mean destruction, and so he adapts to the circumstances. He accepts, without complaint, that the stones in his path hinder his way through the mountains.

Therein lies the strength of water: It cannot be touched by a hammer or ripped to shreds by a knife. The strongest sword in the world cannot scar its surface.

The river adapts itself to whatever route proves possible, but the river never forgets its one objective: the sea. So fragile at its source, it gradually gathers the strength of the other rivers it encounters.

And, after a certain point, its power is absolute.”

Thanks Nikkole!

You can learn more about Nikkole's upcoming playwriting and acting gigs at http://www.nikkolesalter.com/

The Team

Play Development Dramaturge: Professor Denise J. Hart
Director: Professor Tamera Izlar
Student Actors: Michael Shaw, Tiffany Johnson, Tyree, Cilista Johnson

Student Stage Manager: Erika McCrary

Interview with Tamera Izlar/Director

(2008) My colleague, Professor Tamera Izlar, was the Director for our recent staged reading of "Repairing a Nation" by Nikkole Salter. Here's what she had to say about the experience:

In a rehearsal setting, including those that are largely collaborative, inevitable a cast and/or production team will look primarily to one individual to provide specific information and direction for a particular production and/or reading. In Howard University's Department of Theatre Arts Visiting Playwright Series, the age-old ritual continued. In the staged reading of Nikkole Salters new play, Repairing a Nation, ironically, the focus was not placed on the concept/ analysis of the director; instead, all precedence was given to the playwright, Howard's acting alumna and playwright Nikkole Salter. The focus was not given through happenstance; instead, it was a strategic decision, which provided an unprecedented opportunity for actors to work one-on-one with an award-winning playwright.

In a conversation with Ms. Salter held before her residence began, I asked her how she envisioned the rehearsal time allocated and/or workshop sessions given to progress. For the first two days of rehearsal, Nikkole had a specific analysis structure she intended to follow leaving the final day of rehearsal to reviewing rewrites and staging the final reading. Besides supplying an analysis of the play by breaking it into a series of units and objectives, as director, my primary responsibility was to be available, engaged, and ready to stage when requested. In addition, I provided scripts, binders, and music stands while creating an environment in which Ms. Salter could work. The reading stage manager, Erika McCrary, was a great asset in this process.

In order to clarify the collaborative dynamic in which Nikkole and I worked, it is imperative to assemble a rehearsal paradigm. The first rehearsal session was a continuation of auditions. In the audition session, Ms. Salter encouraged the actors, from the sides given, to provide an analysis of their characters "wants" justified solely from the script. Similarly, from a directing perspective, the exercise cut to the root of the director's research foundation supported through Francis Hodge's assertion that "dialogue is the only reliable source of given circumstances".

Consequently, from a playwright's perspective, the exercise intensified to provide further an opportunity to clarify the characters' intensions immediately. Although a director, through heavy analysis uncovers the playwright's ideas of setting inserted within the script, in the workshop, the analysis was supported and clarified through the playwright, usually without the necessity of a director's analysis.

The second rehearsal session was an exercise in which the actors, stage manager, and playwright went through the script and created titles for each scene as well as highlighted the major events each character experienced in each scene. This process provided an opportunity for Ms. Salter to furnish rewrites as each actor fought for their super objectives while continuing to utilize the script and previous group discussions for support. With the script as a catalyst, the actors also had the responsibility to find and secure workable objectives within a small timeline. Within the first reading, for example, the playwright, a graduate from NYU with a MFA in Acting, immediately provided clarification of the dialogue's intension when the actor/actress failed to unravel the intended objective from the script.

In a reading/ production, it is imperative that actors read lines as intended by the playwright. The final rehearsal involved a reading coupled with limited staging to draw focus to the relationships placed on the page. In staging the reading, it was crucial to the director and playwright for the actors to listen and respond to each other while executing their objectives. During a reading, typically, the focus is not on the staging, props, lighting, and/or set, instead, it is on the writing, themes, plot, characters, and character relationships. Although, as director, I interjected blocking notes as it related to the play, major discussions of actor's objectives were lead by Nikkole Salter. As playwright, if an actor failed to grasp the technical and/or emotional quality of the character, they received acting coaching. This is the benefit with working with an actress/playwright. As a result, all of Ms. Salter's training was introduced and embraced by the actors.

Hence, as a director, it was an opportunity to work with a playwright and actress who had a specific idea of what she wanted to receive and give throughout the process. It was also an opportunity to aid the playwright in achieving an environment necessary for development. Lastly, it was a testament to communication. The most gratifying part of the process involved follow-up from audience members and actors alike. Yet the most memorable part of the project was the actors' remarks toward the conclusion of the reading. Each actor made personal connections and became a true advocate for their characters by offering tangible information derived from their workshop experiences. It was truly an artistic and education process.

In speaking with audience member Howard Biology major, Cheriise Hughes, after the performance, she remarked, "it was more than expected. It forced me to use my imagination; I was able to picture every detail in my head; the narrator did an excellent job with descriptive details." She then proceeded to ask questions and offer comments concerning the reading. Hence, we proceeded to have a discussion instigated by extracted words from a page. Ahhh, the power of theatre…

(2008) On Saturday, November 8th the Department of Theatre Arts hosted the staged reading of playwright Nikkole Salter's new play "Repairing a Nation." Nikkole had been in residence in the deparement as the 1st playwright in our Visiting Playwrights Series: Playwrights in Process.

On the night of the event, we had a pretty good sized audience gathered. As a fellow playwright and the producer of the event, it was wonderful to observe the actors, director and playwright working through several intense and discovery filled rehearsal sessions. The cast and stage management team consisted of 5 students They were joined by three seasoned performers from the Washington DC theatre community, who played the older characters in the play.

The focus of Playwrights in Process is on creating a collaborative environment for the playwright to further craft and develop the play. Nikkole assured me that that's exactly what she received and she couldn't be more pleased! Thanks Nikkole!!

Play Update

After development support with Visiting Playwrigts, Repairing a Nation received a first production at Crossroads Theatre Company in New Brunswick, NJ, Feb. 26 - Mar. 8, 2015 directed by Producing Artistic Director, Marshall Jones, III. That same production was featured at the National Black Theatre Festival August 6 -8, 2015 and taped for PBS Thirteen's Theater Close-Up series (Season 2, Episode 4), streamed online and broadcast beginning February 18, 2016. This production was named one of New Jersey's Top Theatre Productions in 2015 by NJArts.net. (Info from Nikkole Salters website. For more info click here - https://www.nikkolesalter.com/repairing-a-nation )

2009 Playwright - Elizabeth Bruce

In 2009 in partnership with the Playwright's Forum led by Ernie Joslewitz, I served as play development dramaturge and director for Elizabeth Bruce's The Exile and the American.

BRIEF BIO

Elizabeth's educational book, CentroNía’s English and Spanish editions of the Theatrical Journey Playbook: Introducing Science to Early Learners through Guided Pretend Play garnered awards from four indie book contests.

As a character actor she co-founded DC’s Sanctuary Theatre with Michael Oliver and Jill Navarre.

She’s co-written scripts performed at the Adventure Theatre and the Capital Fringe Festival; one of her plays won Carpetbag Theatre’s W.F. Lucas Playwrighting Competition. Bruce has been awarded several fellowships from the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, Poets & Writers, and the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation, and been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best Microfictions.

She’s workshopped fiction with Richard Bausch, the late Lee K. Abbott, Janet Peery, John McNally, and Liam Callanan. An honors graduate in English from The Colorado College, Elizabeth and her husband, writer/educator Robert Michael Oliver, have long lived in NE DC where they raised their two adult children, Maya and Dylan.

(Full bio - https://www.elizabethbrucedc.com/about)

Elizabeth's Artist Statement

I write from a respect for community, for memory, for imagination. I write to honor the local, as an old-timer, a newcomer, and the way stations in between. My writings―my stories, my novel, my scripts―focus on regular people pressed into the margins, their equilibrium gone. And yet they go on. Theirs are narratives drawn from my childhood, my friends, family, neighbors, coworkers, the legions of hardworking, plain-spoken people I have known and admired.

I came to writing fiction from years as a nonprofit staffer with a creative life as a character actor. I portrayed characters on the sidelines: the old, the homeless, the estranged, the alcoholic, the discarded. When as a working mother I could no longer manage a life in the theatre, I turned to creative writing. My entry process into fiction echoed the actor’s process: sense memory, subtext, context, setting, stage picture, and profound humility. One is invited into the inner life of someone else, and the responsibility to listen and understand circumstances beyond one’s own mandates empathy.

Indeed, as a writer, reader, and actor, I take solace in the stamina and wit of characters―in resilient people who find meaning and sustenance in the barest of encouragements: the father and son in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road taking shelter in a bunker, Becky in Jean Toomer’s Cane living on a narrow strip of land, Moll Flanders counting her linens.

I strive to discover such sustenance for my stories’ characters. To bring into focus those pristine moments that speak to the whole of a life—those bits of pure aliveness pressed into the wetness of memory like an image on photographic paper. I hope to do them justice.

Play Synopsis

In the summer of 1995, two years after the fall of apartheid in South Africa, a fiercely political, exiled dissident poet, Nomzamu Hadebe, is due to return to his homeland after 31 years in exile in the United States. He has been living for several years with an Anglo couple—Martha and Gerald Owens, and their two young children (though neither Gerald nor the children appear in the play) in an inner city neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Nomzamu, uncompromising curmudgeon that he is, is the children’s rather disinterested godfather.

As the play opens, the wife of the couple, Martha Owens—who is a media activist—-is working feverishly in her home recording studio on a multi--media tribute to Nomzamu to be shown at an upcoming benefit to raise additional funds for Nomzamu’s return. The old film clip with which she is struggling suddenly comes loose at the same time as there is an unexpected knock on the door. Martha, frazzled, opens the door to see a neatly dressed, 20ish bi-racial man, Nkosi Taylor, asking for Nomzamu. Martha—-who is a frenetic, somewhat scattered, good-natured woman—-assumes the young man has come for the benefit, and invites Nkosi in. Hesitantly, he enters.

Through a round-about conversation filled with sometimes comic misunderstandings, it becomes apparent that, while Nkosi is there to see Nomzamu, the two have never met. Martha describes Nomzamu’s austere life-style—-his self-imposed poverty as an act of solidarity with his people—-and describes how Nomzamu makes a meager income by recycling aluminum and other metals. She continues to query Nkosi as to the nature of his affiliation with Nomzamu. Nkosi, however, is evasive.

At the end of the scene, Nkosi dispassionately announces that Nomzamu is his absent father. Martha, momentarily stunned, is elated, and hugs Nkosi maternally. Nkosi, however, does not respond.

Nkosi tells Martha of his mother’s—-Gillian Taylor’s--recent death from breast cancer, explaining that she—-a British woman from Manchester, England--was a dancer with a transnational dance company in Harlem, and that she raised him alone, but with the constant respectful reference to his father, Nomzamu, as a courageous freedom fighter. Upon learning that Nomzanmu is the godfather to Martha and her husband’s two young children, Nkosi confronts Martha—-whom, he discovers, knew Nomzamu had a son he’d never seen in New York--about her complicity in never demanding that Nomzamu go to New York to be a father to his son.

Nomzamu enters unseen as Martha and Nkosi listen to a recording of Nomzamu’s poetry. Not knowing that Nkosi is his son, Nomzamu banters with him about the strength of women in South Africa, and teases him good-naturedly, asking Nkosi if he is a reporter for the New York Times. However, as Nomzamu gradually learns where Nkosi grew up, where his mother danced, and especially when he learns of Nkosi’s name, the poet embraces his now-adult son, and begins to query him about his beautiful mother’s whereabouts, praising Nkosi’s mother for her strength and intelligence

Nkosi bitterly announces that his mother is dead.

Nomzaumu is uncharacteristically shaken by this news, speaking quietly of his unique love and admiration for Nkosi’s mother, Gillian, and for his infant son. He berates Nkosi for not informing him about the funeral, declaring that he would have come and praised Nkosi’s mother.

Nkosi, however, will have none of that. He is bitterly angry at his father for abandoning them—for relegating Nkosi and his single, dancer-mother, to a life of financial difficulty, and rejects Nomzamu’s protestations that Nkosi’s mother was a strong woman whom he trusted absolutely to be capable of raising Nkosi alone in the wealthy USA, and pointing to Nkosi’s healthy young manhood as proof.

An argument ensues between Nomzamu—the dissident political exile whose every energy and meager resources have been dedicated to fighting apartheid in South Africa through his poetry (cassettes of which are smuggled into South Africa and used to embolden young freedom fighters)—and Nkosi—the grieving young adult son of a now-deceased mother who accepted her austere single motherhood as a political act supportive of the South African struggle. It is a classic collision between the personal—the son’s need for his father’s love and presence—-and the political—-Nomzamu’s single-minded commitment to the struggle against apartheid to the exclusion of personal, familial responsibilities and attendant joys. The conflict dips into issues of American wealth and dominance vs. the “boot on the neck” of oppressed people everywhere. Martha unsuccessfully tries to get the two men to listen to each other with their hearts and minds open.

Finally, Nomzamu quietly invites Nkosi, his son, to come with him to South Africa, and exits. Martha and Nkosi, drained, speak solemnly about the pain of the situation. Martha, in a twist, urges Nkosi to go with Nomzamu because he—Nkosi—is now strong enough, his own man enough, to withstand his father’s overbearing manner. Besides, she confesses, she believes that Nomzamu will need Nkosi’s support, that Nomzamu’s return to his homeland will be difficult financially, and that the poet, in her view, is personally vulnerable in ways that he would never acknowledge. Nkosi listens, but finally--stating that his mother, in her weakened condition, finally cursed Nomzamu for his absence--exits. Martha watches Nkosi leave. The stage is silent for a moment, and finally she crosses to the sound board and turns on a recording of Nomzamu’s powerful political poetry. BLACK OUT.

2009 Playwright - Peter Harris

The Johnson Chronicles--a "body memoir" of male perspectives on sex, relationships, and violence. The Johnson Chronicles is the creation of Peter J. Harris, an award-winning writer, broadcaster, publisher, and artistic director who has gained national recognition for his works on the lives of black men. Harris was inspired by a performance of The Vagina Monologues to develop a complimentary piece. The johnson (penis) speaks to men as the vagina speaks to women, helping them to understand the pain and deterioration that violence against women brings to individuals and communities. Audiences will be taken from boyhood to manhood with monologues on sex, fatherhood, and intimacy. Similar to The Vagina Monologues, The Johnson Chronicles will encourage reflection on uncomfortable truths through sketches that are alternately humorous and heartbreaking. A performance of The Johnson Chronicles will occur in Washington, DC on Friday, February 6, 2009.

I'm sure many of you have heard of The Vagina Monologues written by Eve Ensler, well now there's a similarly structured play called what else, The Johnson Chronicles. The Johnson Chronicles is written by poet, playwright, and artist Peter Harris https://johnsonchronicles.com/about/

The Johnson Chronicles will be joining a tour of The Vagina Monologues produced by Yetta Young Productions http://www.ylpllc.com/ on the 2009 In Love W e Trust Tour. The tour will mark the first time that there will be a male "voice" accompanying The Vagina Monologues. The objective is to spark introspective and eye-opening dialogue between men and women.

I recently had a chance to interview Mr. Harris and here's what he had to say:

What compelled you to write The Johnson Chronicles? I wrote The Johnson Chronicles after reading the Vagina Monologues as a book and then witnessing a staged performance of VM.

I said to the woman with whom i attended the performance: "Somebody should write the Johnson Chronicles..." we laughed, watched the gig, and afterward i remained haunted by the turn of phrase and by the potential of the project.

I began to take notes and ruminate on the idea when a couple of elemental questions floated into my mind that i felt should be answered by whatever i wrote: when did the myth of the big black johnson start? how did it become the archetype of black men? also, i wanted to explore what i call 'whole living,' not just sexual/sensual themes but developmental stuff, all written in a conversational, poetic, swinging voice that sounded like ethical dudes talking among themselves: first-time sex, impotence, relationships between fathers/elders and sons, worries about sexual health, protecting my testicles, first appearance of pubic hair, etc....

What do you hope will be the future of the project?

sell more books. produce the theatrical adaptation in more venues. use the theatrical piece as a tool -- a la The Vagina Monologues -- to work with men of all ages to discuss their own Johnson Chronicles. Create of documentary in which men go on record with stories about their own Johnson.

Mr. Harris will visit the Howard University Department of Theatre Arts on Wednesday, February 4th at 4:30 pm in our Environmental Theatre Space (ETS) as a part of our "Visiting Playwrights Series"

I invite you to join us for a lively discussion and a chance to meet the playwright of "The Johnson Chronicles"

creatively yours,

Professor Denise J. Hart

2010 Playwright - Kofi Kwahule

In Partnership with the Lark Play Development Center

Kofi Kwahule

(2010) Set your calendar and plan on joining the Visting Playwrights Series at Howard University when we welcome international playwright Koffi Kwahule along with his primary collaborator Chantal Bilodeau during the Spring semester.

Through a partnership with the Lark Play Development Center in New York Professor Denise J. Hart and the Department of Theatre Arts is thrilled to be a part of developing the translation of Mr. Kwahule's play Melancholy of Barbarians, from French to English. Mr. Kwahule will be in residence from February 17 - 20th. The department will host a staged reading of the play on Saturday, February 20th at 6pm in the Environmental Theatre Space located on the first floor of the Fine Arts building.

This residency and public presentation of Melancholy of Barbarians is part of a seven year project, guided by the Lark Play Development Center, New York City, with support of Etant donnes: The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts. The overall goal of the project is to translate, develop, and publish seven of Koffi Kwahule’s plays in order to foster international exchange and to bring to the forefront of the American theater a unique theatrical voice.

Mr. Kwahule was a featured playwright in the November 08 issue of American Theatre Magazine to read the article click here: http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/Nov08/eurafrique.cfm

The Visiting Playwrights Series in The Department of Theatre Arts is designed to afford students in the department the opportunity to participate in, explore and understand the process of new play development. In addition, the series is quickly becoming an additional platform for playwrights to develop plays in a safe, creative and forward thinking environment.

About the Play

Baby Mo just got married to a cop old enough to be her father. Through this marriage, she has become part of the upper crust of her immigrant ghetto – a life she has always wanted. But since her wedding, Baby Mo’s husband demands she wears the veil. Although Baby Mo complies, no piece of cloth could ever contain her or the intense feelings she has for Zac, an old high school friend and local drug dealer… Koffi Kwahulé’s latest work, MELANCHOLY is a play about love, fundamentalism and women striking back.

Here's a brief except from Mr. Kwahules bio: Koffi Kwahulé is a playwright and novelist originally from Ivory Coast. He studied at the Institut National des Arts in Abidjan, at l’École Supérieure des Arts et Techniques du Théâtre de Paris (rue Blanche), as well as at the Sorbonne Nouvelle where he earned his Ph.D. in Theatre Studies. He is the recipient of the Grand prix International des dramaturgies du Monde (RFI/ACCT), the Prix SACD-RFI 94 and the Journées d’Auteurs du Théâtre des Célestins de Lyon. Recent productions include Jaz (Teatro del Fontanone and Teatro Palladium, Rome), Bintou (Théâtre Océan Nord, Brussels), P’tite-Souillure (DISK, Prague), La Dame du café d’en face (Zuidpool Theater, Anvers), Big Shoot (Verse Waar Festival, Chassé Theater, Breda and Théâtre Denise-Pelletier, Montreal), Blue-S-cat (Chapelle du Verbe incarné, Avignon) and Misterioso-119 (Théâtre Marni, Brussels). Most of his plays have been produced internationally and translated into several languages. His first novel, Babyface, published by Éditions Gallimard in 2006, won the Grand Prix Ahmadou Kourouma and the Grand Prix Ivoirien des Lettres.

Please join us on Saturday, February 20th at 6pm to share in the development process of Melancholy of Barbarians.

THE LARK PLAY DEVELOPMENT CENTER

Founded in 1994, the Lark is a laboratory for new voices and new ideas, the Lark Play Development Center provides American and international playwrights with indispensable resources to develop their work, nurturing artists at all stages in their careers, and inviting them to freely express themselves in a supportive and rigorous environment.

By reaching across international boundaries, the Lark seeks out and embraces new and diverse perspectives from writers in all corners of the world. With the aim to integrate audiences into the creative process from its initial stages, the Lark brings together actors, directors and playwrights to allow writers to learn about their own work by seeing it—and by receiving feedback from a dedicated and supportive community. (http://www.larktheatre.org/)

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Koffi Kwahule's work is being additionally supported in the U.S. by hotINK international play festival who presented a reading of Koffi's play BLUE-S-CATS-work this year. (http://www.hotink.org )

Translator - Chantal Bilodeau

Chantal Bilodeau

(2010) During the 2010 Spring Visiting Playwrights Series at Howard University, we have the oppotunity to have a rather unique experience. Since Mr. Kwahule's plays are written in French, part of Mr. Kwahule's residency in the Department of Theatre Arts is centered on translating his play to English.

This admirable task is being done by his primary collborator Chantal Bilodeau. The translation of Melancholy of Barbarians is part of a seven year collaboration where Chantal has translaed 6 out of 7 plays.

Here's just a little about miss Bilodeau:

CHANTAL BILODEAU is a playwright and translator originally from Montreal, Canada. Her plays include Pleasure & Pain (Magic Theatre; Foro La Gruta and Teatro La Capilla, Mexico City), The Motherline (Ohio University; University of Miami; NY International Fringe Festival), Tagged (Ohio University; Alleyway Theatre), as well as several shorts that have been presented by theatres across the country. She was a member of the Women’s Project Playwrights’ Lab, the Lark Playwrights Workshop, the Dramatists Guild Fellowship Program, and a fellow at the MacDowell Colony, the Banff Centre (Canada), the Translators House (The Netherlands) and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. She has received grants from NYSCA, the Canada Council for the Arts, the Quebec Government House, Étant Donnés: The French-American Fund for the Performing Arts and Association Beaumarchais (France) and was recently awarded a 2010 NEA Translation Fellowship. Her translations include plays by contemporary playwrights Larry Tremblay (Quebec), Koffi Kwahulé (Côte d’Ivoire) and Mohamed Kacimi (Algeria). She is currently working on a new musical with composer Lisa DeSpain and lyricist Mindi Dickstein, on a new play that examines how the Inuit population is adapting to a fast changing climate commissioned by Mo`olelo Performing Arts Company, and on several translation projects.

Interview with Chantal Bilodeau

(2010) I had a chance to interview the translator for Melancholy of Barbarians, Chantal Bilodeau. Here's what she had to say:

How is translating a play informative and beneficial to your own process as a playwright?

Because the process of translation requires that I look at a play very closely, that I identify recurring patterns and images and that I investigate the meaning of every word, I am in a sense "studying" every play I translate. To be able to successfully bring it from one language into another, I have to know what makes it work, how it moves forward and be sensitive to the author's tone, cultural references and use of language. That process of looking deeply into someone else's work, of more or less living in that writer's head, is the best playwriting class one could ever hope for.

Every time I work on a translation, I learn a different approach to building characters, developing a scene, playing with rhythm, layering the text with levels of meaning, etc. And every time, I am inspired to try some of these approaches in my own writing. I find that translating gives me a better understanding for my craft, challenges my aesthetics and generally makes me a better playwright.

What challenges have you faced through the process of translating Mr. Kwahule's plays?

There have been many challenges and those are what make the process of translating exciting. I had, in BIG SHOOT for example, to figure out what to do with lines that were written in English in the original French version and used by one character to dominate another character. (Although the lines don't function exactly in the same way the other way around, I ended up translating them into French for the English version.) In BINTOU, where there is a big contrast between how adult speak and how teenagers speak, I had to recreate this contrast in English, but without making the teenagers sound like Americans, which would have detracted from the tone of the play. So I gave the teenagers a hint of slang but without making it too obviously North American. MISTERIOSO-119 has a large cast of characters but the play is written as "pure dialogue", without any indication of who is speaking. For that play, I had to pay really close attention to patterns of speech because those are the only clues that help a reader follow a character. More recently, with THE MELANCHOLY OF BARBARIANS, I had to translate two pages worth of idioms and decide when it was more important to favor the image over the meaning or vice versa. And I could go on...

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Koffi Kwahule's work is being additionally supported in the U.S. by hotINK international play festival who presented a reading of Koffi's play BLUE-S-CATS-work this year. (http://www.hotink.org)

Kofi Kwahule & Chantal Bilodeau

Share a funny story of how you realized your translation was altering the original intent of the playwrights story.

The first play by Koffi Kwahulé that I translated is called JAZ. It's a beautiful, poetic monologue written in free verse for an actress and a jazz musician. The way the process was designed, I was to do a first draft of the translation before Koffi came to the Lark Play Development Center in New York to work with me and a director and actors on refining the translation. So I did my first draft as best I could (this was not only my first time translating Koffi, it was my first time translating altogether) and was rather proud of the result and excited to share it with the author. However, when we started asking Koffi questions about the play, one of the most basic elements, which is in fact the structure on which the whole play is constructed, had completely escaped me. It turned out that the woman in the play is answering an invisible interrogator (and not simply talking to herself!). That detail meant that although my translation was accurate in terms of what the words meant, the intention behind the words was lost and there was no dramatic movement. I was mortified. This was a prominent playwright and the last thing I wanted was to prove myself incompetent. Thankfully, Koffi is very generous (and translation development workshop exist specifically to catch those kinds of mistakes). I reworked the translation and eventually arrived at a draft that was faithful to the original. And seven years later, Koffi still lets me translate his plays so I guess I didn't make too bad of a first impression after all.

Chantal, thank you for sharing the translators process.

If you're in the WDC area, we invite you to join us on Saturday, February 20th for the staged reading of Mr. Kwahule's play Melancholy of Barbarians at Howard University Department of Theatre Arts at 6pm.

The Team

Play Development Dramaturge: Professor Denise J. Hart
Director: Professor Denise J. Hart
Co-Producer: Lark Play Development Center NYC
Student Actors: Kasaun Wilson, Shiree Adkins, Asha Edwards, Tyshae Price, Yewande Odetoyinbo, Narlyia Sterling, Camille Thomas, Matt Holbert, Aigner Corbitt, Darius Vines, Joshua Gaddy

Student Stage Manager: Brooke Brown
Student Dramaturge: Marita Phelps
Student Translator: Levonia Charles

Student Cast

Aigner Corbitt, Camille Thomas, Shiree Adkins, Candice Hale, Kasaun Wilson, Joshua Gaddy, Tyshae Price, Darius Vines, Asha Edwards, Matt Holbert, Yewande Odetoyinbo

Student Team

Production/Stage Manger - Brooke Brown

Dramaturg - Marita Phelps

French Translator - Leovinia Charles (not pictured)

Faculty

Producer/Director - Denise J. Hart

Department Chair - Joe Selmon (not pictured)

Technical Support - George Epting (not pictured)

A Word from Student Dramaturge Marita Phelps

Student stage manager Brooke Brown and Student dramaturge Marita Phelps

Mr. Kwahule's Final Words About the Process

1. In what way was the Playwrights in process experience beneficial to you as a writer and a person?

This workshop was too short to be able to draw conclusions. Besides, it is difficult to clearly identify the truly significant changes that an experience can effect on the way we approach artistic or literary work. It seems to me that things are much looser, less clear-cut, and that any assessment, if I can use that term, will happen much later, when I least expect it.

2. Did you discover anything new that you'll use in your future writing or teaching experiences?

What was new for me was that it was my first time working with an American university. Up until now, my experiences in the U.S. – whether in New York, Los Angeles, Minneapolis or at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in Stockbridge – have been with actors from “civilian life.” So Howard is my first university. And the little that I saw at Howard (through our exchange of questions) allowed me to understand a little better the very internal style of acting of the American actors with which I have had the opportunity to work.

3. If you could add something to the process, what would that be and why?

In addition to the internal quality of the American school of acting – work that relies more on subtleties of meaning, the soul of the text and its internal music – it would have been interesting to explore a style of acting based on what I would call the factual, external music of the text. A music suggested by the unfolding of the words themselves, that precedes any consideration of meaning. A university – which is a place of research, of exploration by trial and error, where you’re not circumscribed by the urgency and demands of production yet – seems an appropriate setting for such a digression which, far from being pointless, could enrich the actors’ traditional acting style. But that would require a little more time and most of all, that my English be less awful.

We made it!! The final rehearsal days were both intense and fruitful. The students stepped up with a level of professionalism that deserves to be applauded.

The Department of Theatre Arts is truly grateful to the team at The Lark and to playwright Koffi Kwahule for inviting us to collaborate on this amazing project.

Thank you Koffi for sharing with us all!

PHOTOS - Rehearsal/Masterclass & Public Reading

Thank You from the Lark Play Development Center

2010 Playwright - A. Peter Bailey

A. Peter Bailey is the 2010 Visiting Playwright in residence in The Department of Theatre Art at Howard University. We will present a staged reading of his newest play: Malcolm, Martin, Medgar on Saturday, November 6th at 6pm in the Ira Aldridge Theatre. For more info phone: 202-806-7050

(2010) The Howard University Department of Theatre Arts is proud to announce the Fall Semester Visiting Playwright - A. Peter Bailey.

Here's some insight as to what inspired Mr. Bailey to write the play that the Department will present a staged reading of on November 6th at 6pm in Ira Aldridge Theatre.

The Why of Malcolm, Martin, Medgar

The Why of Malcolm, Martin, Medgar was ignited back in the 1960s when I had the great opportunity to personally meet and learn from brilliant, mind-expanding giants such as Howard University historian, Professor Harold Lewis, historian, Professor Harold Cruse, historian, Professor John Henryk Clarke, novelist John Oliver Killens, content analysis expert, Professor Mahmoud Boutiba, civil and human rights activist, Fannie Lou Hamer, and most importantly, human rights activist and master teacher, Malcolm X.

They not only taught; they also inspired. It was only Professor Lewis with whom I was involved in a traditional classroom setting; the others I learned from in various venues throughout Harlem and rest of New York City. They all made emphasized the tremendous importance of acquiring knowledge if one was to be an effective contributor to the political, economic and cultural movement that was challenging white supremacy and racism in the Unites States. It was this background that I brought to Ebony Magazine when hired as a staffer in 1968. And being based in Ebony’s New York City office during the time, 1965-1985, when an exciting, thought-provoking, creative, compelling Black Arts Movement was emerging led to my being assigned to cover numerous cultural events and to write numerous cultural articles for Ebony and several other publications, including Jet, Negro Digest (later to become Black World), The New York Times, The Black American Literature Forum and The Black Collegian. Most of those articles focused on Black Theatre.

To the extreme annoyance of some Black Theatre producers, directors and playwright, I was not one of those proponents of “arts for arts” sake. I shared the position reflected in a quote from Chinua Achebe who noted that “art for arts sake is just another piece of deodorized dog-s***.” My first and main focus was basically on what their plays were expressing about Black people; what messages were being sent. I had been taught that every single play, movie, song, book etc. had a message. One just had to search for it. As a result of this approach some disgruntled Black theatre artists, on several occasions, asked me scornfully “Why don’t you write your own play?”

(In 1999, I began doing just that-which is the why of Malcolm, Martin, Medgar, along with my weariness of meeting and sometimes teaching so many young Black folks who knew absolutely nothing about Medgar Evers, one of the great warriors of the Civil Rights Movement and whose knowledge of the other two legendary warriors was limited to Malcolm “By Any Means Necessary” X and Martin Luther “I Have a Dream” King, Jr.

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Playwright, author, journalist, activist, A. Peter Bailey, was born in Columbus, Georgia and raised in Tuskegee, Alabama. After graduating from high school, he joined the U.S. Army for three years and then attended Howard (1959-1961) University for two years. While at Howard he became an activist in the Civil Rights Movement.

From there Bailey moved to Harlem, New York City and became a founding member of the Organization of Afro-American Unity which was founded by Malcolm X in 1964 after his separation from the Nation of Islam. He was editor of the OAAU’s newsletter and was in the Audubon Ballroom on February 21, 1965 when Brother Malcolm was assassinated. He was a pall-bearer at his funeral.

In 1968, Bailey became a staffer with Ebony Magazine, based in Johnson Publishing Company’s New York office. As such, he automatically was assigned many of Ebony’s cultural articles published between 1968 and 1985, especially those focusing on Black Theatre. He also contributed Black Theatre articles to several other publications including Jet, Negro Digest/Black World, The New York Times, Black Literature Forum and The Black Collegian. Bailey’s position also led to his being on the Tony Awards Nominating Committee for the 1975-1976 Broadway theatre season and to being chair of the Awards Committee for the Audience Development Committee (AUDELCO) which presents annual awards for excellence in Black Theatre. Between 1965 and 1985, Bailey saw over 300 plays, 90 percent of them Black.

He is the author of Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey and Harlem: Precious Memories, Great Expectations and co-author of Seventh Child: A Family Memoir of Malcolm X. He has been a lecturer at 35 colleges and universities throughout the country and has taught, as an adjunct professor, communication courses at Hunter College, Virginia Commonwealth University and The University of the District of Columbia.

The Team

Play Development Dramaturge: Professor Denise J. Hart
Director: Professor Denise J. Hart
Student Actors: Nijeul Porter, Adarius Smith, Jeff Kirkman

Student Dramaturges: Marita Phelps & Ariel Danley

Masterclass: A Personal Look, Black Theatre 1965-1985

2012 Playwright - Denise J. Hart

My play, Nothing to Lose was the 2012 play for the Visiting Playwrights program. My colleague, Otis Ramsey-Zoe was the director.

Family Love. Race. Betrayal. Honor... Set in Omaha Nebraska six months after Hurricane Katrina. After two 13 year old black male cousins end up dead after a gang initiation goes awry, black television newscaster Stephen Campbell struggles to come to terms with his inability to prevent the deaths. Campbell had been a mentor to the one of the youth, but his efforts to be a role model seem to have been in vain. The tragedy awakens Campbell's conflicting intra-racial views and threaten to tear apart what Campbell treasures the most, his very own family.

The Team

Play Development Dramaturge: Professor Otis Ramsey
Director: Professor Otis Ramsey
Student Actors: Stanley, Brande, Stephanie Pounds, Cleavon Meabane,

Student Dramaturge : Marita Phelps

Play Update

After development with Visiting Playwrights, Nothing to Lose was a finalist in the 2018 Bay Area Playwrights Competition and selected by Unexpected Stage Company in 2021 for a Staged Reading. For more info click here https://sites.google.com/view/djharttheatrewebsite/specialties/playwriting/nothing-to-lose

2016-2017 Playwright - Nikkole Salter

TORN ASUNDER dramatizes true stories of newly emancipated African Americans trying to overcome the ever-present vestiges of chattel slavery to reconnect with their families. Based on the research of Dr. Heather Andrea Williams in her book HELP ME TO FIND MY PEOPLE. (Commissioned by Dr. Heather Andrea Williams and Kathy A. Perkins)

Too bad this wasn't taped as it was such a wonderful reading! ~ Kathy

Torn Asunder - Review

Review by student Amanda Dyer

Torn Asunder by Nikkole Salter was a gripping and saddening tale of a group of black people during the time and turn of slavery. A new family has been torn apart and they must try to put themselves back together again.

The story follows protagonist Hannah as she has just Married Moses, the man she loves and a fellow slave on her master’s plantation. She is thought to be the master’s favorite so she does not experience much distress even though she is a slave. In the beginning this seems to attract the jealousy and/or annoyance of Malinda a fellow house slave. Hannah’s good treatment is part of the reason that once she and Moses marry and he asks her to run away with him she says no. Her master is dying but she assures him that he has made plans to make sure that she and Moses stay together and her family on the plantation with his wife. Also she is pregnant and is concerned about the pressures of running away while carrying a baby. But once her master passes she and Malinda are sent away to work for his daughter and her husband John, while Moses stays on the plantation. Not too long after Hannah has given birth to their son Elijah she sends a letter to Moses which prompts him to run away.

One of the beats in this play is the story of John who’s job as a trader was not respected by the late master but he has no interest in owning a plantation and slaves. He has no issue so much with slavery as much as he just has a distaste for black people. He goes through his own struggle of keeping his business afloat as the Civil War has just begun which has impeded on his trading business significantly. He owes a lot of money and has used his wife’s mother’s slaves, this including Moses, as collateral.

When Moses runs away John has lost his collateral and is incredibly angry especially when he discovers the note that Hannah wrote him, believing his escape was her fault. He decides to sell Hannah and Malinda down to Georgia, separating Hannah from her child. At this point Hannah has experienced a bit of character development as she has lost trust in her white masters after being treated so differently by John than her previous master. She has a better understanding of the cruel situation that she is in.

Once in Georgia Malinda and Hannah meet Henry, another slave on their new plantation. Henry quickly falls in love with Hannah and she sees some similarities to Moses in him. Meanwhile Moses ran away and joined the union army, afterword’s becoming a blacksmith for a Frenchman in Canada. He works hard each day to get enough money to go and find Hannah and Elijah again. The union wins the war and Hannah, Malinda, and Henry are freed from their plantation. They travel together back to Maryland where John lives for Elijah but Johns shop is destitute and he refuses to tell her where Elijah has gone.

Hannah puts out ads in the paper each day searching for Moses and Elijah but after no responses Henry is finally able to convince her to marry him. They move to a farm in Kentucky along with Malinda and have children. Moses finally finds Hannah again and tells her he may know where Elijah is but she decides to stay with Henry and her other children.

The constant appearance of obstacles led to an exciting yet devastating storyline and what made me love the story most was the fact that it did not exactly have a “Happy ending.” Although Hannah does end up with a husband and family it is not with Moses and all that he has worked for seems to be for naught. Although this ending is sad it is also a realistic representation of possible outcomes from this time in history that are not usually considered.

The characters were also incredibly well developed. Each and every one of them had a wonderfully developed backstory that was able to be included into the play and in its own way moved the story along. John had issues with his trading business. Malinda struggled with being sexually abused by her masters. Henry struggled with identity issues as his father was a white man. There were many troubles of the black slavery experience represented in this piece which kept the audience entertained and thinking.

The Team

Play Development Dramaturge: Professor Denise J. Hart
Director: Professor Denise J. Hart
Student Actors: Nia Savoy, Savina Magdalena Barini, Alric Davis, Neah Banks, Rickey Brown
Professional actors: Dan Banks, Todd Leatherbury

Student Stage Manager: Symone Crews
Student Assistant Stage Manager: Asia McCallum
Student House Manager: Renita Walker
Commissioned by: Kathy Perkins

Nia Savoy - Hannah

Torn Asunder is a very pinching piece about the realities of what marriage meant to enslaved men and women. Enslaved black people were denied a secure family life. The destruction of the family unit through the slave master’s intrusive sexual exploitation of women and other evil designs, evolved into a volatile moral code for black people.

Hannah Louise Ballard is someone like me and many other young women. Someone who dreams of marrying the love her life, and having their "own lil' piece of land to plow and a house-full of children". Even though that dream seemed merely a dream, Hannah's faith overpowered the death of that dream. She went from trying to keep her family together to praying that they could be reunited again. This story is about the testament of Hannah's faith and even though it may seem like she "gave up" by "settling" with Henry, I think differently. Towards the end of the play, I realized that it wasn't always necessarily about Hannah keeping her family together but it was about achieving personal freedom.

Savina Magdalena Barini - Malinda

I don't know that I had ever thought about what happened to divided families after emancipation. It seems natural that you would want to go in search of whoever you had left, children or spouses or siblings or whoever your people were, but I also wonder whether for a lot of people it was a reminder of how deeply and permanently their families has been separated. The idea of making a family where you could because yours had been torn apart is one that seems to serve as balm for a lot of people who couldn't find families after emancipation, or who didn't have families to find, and I feel like Malinda is herself an exploration of that idea. She has children out in the world somewhere, but she doesn't have any means of finding them. She simultaneously serves as an example that while it's heartbreaking, it is possible to forge a family and a future after yours has been destroyed or taken, and as an example that isolating yourself for fear of losing a family, the way Henry at one point suggests, isn't necessarily a great idea.

It can leave you bitter in the way Malinda sometimes is toward Hannah, and it can be lonely and make it harder to deal with the brutality happening around you. Of course it seems like Malinda is ultimately an example of the happier/more healing parts of creating a family for yourself when your own is lost, as she does seem to find happiness with Hannah and Henry and their children. It's also interesting to me that Hannah is struggling with giving up on her search for Elijah and eventually does reconcile herself with it, while at the same time Malinda is and has been wrestling with knowing she won't be able to find her children and with her decision to make sure she doesn't have or lose any more of them. The circumstances are different, but the two women are fighting similar internal battles. To me, Malinda and Hannah seem like different sides of very similar coins if not the same one.

Alric Davis - Moses

I think Moses at the core is a man of incredible strength who knows his worth. At the advice of a slave, he has become an emotional "rock" in order to survive the harshness of his conditions. Internally he doesn't see himself as a slave or unworthy of happiness and a chance at life.

He is driven solely by the search of that happiness, so he steals away from the plantation when Hannah and Elijah are taken from him. But once in Canada, he realizes how selfish this act was. In his pivotal monologue he discovers that "freedom ain't freedom without 'em" and finally allows himself to be affected by the horrors of his life.

I think Salter is shedding light on the wide spectrum of mentalities that slaves possessed. Moses, contrary to someone like Malinda, has had to be his own protector and thus, seems emotionally cold and stubborn at times.

Play Update

TORN ASUNDER received its firts development workshop production at the University of North Carolina, Winston Salem's "Telling Our Stories of Home" Festival, March 31-April 8, 2016 in conjunction with the Institute for Arts and the Humanities' Process Series. Visiting Playwrights was the plays second development venture. The play received its world premiere at the St. Louis Black Repertory Theatre April 13 - 29, 2018, directed by Ron Himes. Set design: Dunsi Dai; Lighting Design: Kathy A. Perkins; Costume Design: Daryl Harris; Sound Design: Kareem Deans; Prop Design: Kate Slovenski; Projection Design: Geordy Van Es; Stage Manager: Tracy D. Holliway-Wiggins; Technical Director: Jonah Scheckler. For the Luna Stage production, see here. (Info from Nikkole Salter's website. For more info click here - https://www.nikkolesalter.com/torn-asunder)

Performing Arts Training Studio

Denise also led play development initiatives through her non-profit, The Performing Arts Training Studio from 2011-2016. The Playwrights Posse was a unique opportunity for DC playwrights of color to write together and support community career development.

1995-1996 Howard University

From 1995-1996 as an undergrad at Howard University I was the president of the historic Howard Players. One of my proudest accomplishments was conceiving and producing a festival of new plays. Supporting new works has been in my blood since undergrad!

Our executive committee was: Denise J. Hart (President), Candace Jackson (Vice President), Kamilah Forbes and Kamiesha Duncan

With the launch of my newest org, Play Development Lab I'm building on my 25 years of experience training and preparing new writers for stage and screen and my deep commitment to helping writers advance process, craft and career! PDL is all about helping BIPOC women writers write better plays that radically impact and change the world.

The Visiting Playwrights program ended in 2017 with the play development of Torn Asunder.

Thankfully, today, Denise continues supporting playwrights through the Play Development Lab!

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