Blumenthal Box Office: 704-372-1000

• Date: September 14 - 29 2012
• Presented By:
  • On Q Productions
• Location: JCSU ArtsFactory
  1545 West Trade St.
  Charlotte, NC 28206
• Price: $24. Wednesday, Sept 26 is "Pay What You Can" night.

K.M.B.A- An Evening @ The Black Arts Movement
A collage of short works and one acts, all packed into one an evening of Revolution dedicated to the Black Arts Movement.

Dutchman by Amiri Baraka
Directed by Quentin Talley

Dutchman is an emotionally charged and archetypal one act version of the Adam and Eve story, wherein a naive bourgeois black man, Clay (the black Adam), is tempted by an insane and calculating white seductress, Lula (a white Eve), who is coldly preparing for her next victim as the curtain comes down. This 1965 Obie Award winning work by poet/playwright Amiri Baraka is a passionately taut, intellectual verbal fencing match on race and gender, which spirals into a violent symbolic act that will repeat itself over and over again.

Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy
Directed by- Jamilia Reddy

The play chronicles the last hours in the life of Sarah; a young Black woman amid swirling conflicts and desires becomes a victim of a nightmare world, where she is visited by the Duchess of Hapsburg, Queen Victoria, Patrice Lumumba and Jesus Christ. Troubled by race and identity issues and struggling with self-hatred and alienation, Adrienne Kennedy weaves a poetic and Avant garde look at the black psyche. Funnyhouse of a Negro, launched her career as one of the most respected playwrights of the American stage and garnered a 1964 OBIE Award for most distinguished play.

The Theme is Blackness/A Short Play for a Small Theater by Ed Bullins
Directed by- Special Guest

Both of these works are an experimental look at the effects of being Black in America, from the godfather of the Black Arts Movement, Mr. Ed Bullins. Before August Wilson started his twentieth century cycle about the black experience, Bullins was well underway to writing his own chronicle about black life. This prolific and bold playwright, captures the cerebral thought in The Theme is Blackness and A Short Play for a Small Theater. They are a page each, with little or no dialogue, but plenty of thought provoking and scathing action. Be prepared to challenge your thoughts about the "Black Theatre" experience.