Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute

Past

Roost-Play Reading at Langston Hughes Cultural Arts Institute

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Roost, Public Reading of play about Black women and reality TV

Reality television is everywhere. But behind gaffer-taped, sound-bite confessionals, what is life like after getting a final rose or being voted off an island? In the new play Roost, Sound Theatre playwright-in-resident Zharia O’ Neal chronicles various post-reality arcs of Black women for the Roost public reading at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Directed by Aviona Rodriguez Brown, the reading is a culmination of Sound Theatre’s first William S. Yellow Robe Jr. Playwright Residency cycle, through the Making Waves New Works program. There will also be a Talkback to follow, as well as a reception by Thyme Well Spent, a Black-owned business.

Past

Barbecue sizzles at Intiman

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Not your average Dr. Phil intervention

I must admit that when I first heard about Intiman’s new show Barbecue, by Robert O’Hara, about two families, one black, one white, having family interventions for drug-addicted sisters, written by guy with an Irish last name, I cringed. HELP !!!!
The only help I needed was help to stop laughing and occasionally crying, so that the actors on stage could get on with the play. Yes it was a) that funny b) that sad and c)that uplifting. Since nothing can top the eloquence of the director, so I will just quote her because it pretty much sums up what I took away from the play: “ People tend to embrace the things that make us different rather than the complexities that make us all human beings. We want to turn that idea on its head with this story.” And did it ever!!!!! Without ever sounding serious or pompous, the script itself was outrageously witty and the delivery was wittily outrageous.

Past

August Wilson Documentary Opens Film Festival

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The 12th Edition of the Langston Hughes African American Film Festival appropriately began with a tribute documentary about August Wilson. August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand celebrates the 70th year of his birth. Wilson’s family was in attendance, and Constanza Romero, Wilson’s widow, encouraged Seattle to accept August as one of our own. She said he was very happy living here. They had fallen in love but lived in different cities and had to choose between here or Portland. Seattle had a stronger theater community, and that was the tiebreaker. Sorry Portland, they moved here, and yes, he’s one of us now.

Past

The Purification Process

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A Marxist View

It was difficult to tell whether The Purification Process, written and directed by Malika Lee, was a social service event, which failed to raise awareness about breast cancer or a play about a woman whose catalyst to resolve some deep seated emotional issues was a diagnosis of breast cancer.

Past

HELLO DARLIN’S: Moms Got Something to Tell You!

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A Schemata-clad African-American Lesbian Walked that Fine Line Between Good Taste and Unemployment, while Making $10,000 a week.

Josephine Howell, an actress and singer, starred in a One-Woman & Pianist Show about the life and work of “The Funniest Woman in the World,” Jackie “Mom’s Mabley at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute. Born in the 1890’s in the South, Mom’s Mabley’s career started with black vaudeville in the 1920’s on what is called the “Chitlin’ Circuit”.

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