2018-2019 Production Schedule
Tickets may be purchased online.
Fall 2018
An Echo in the Bone
(by Dennis Scott)
Admission: $10 – Free to KSU faculty, staff, and students
Directed by Dr. Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson
Performed by the Pan-African Theatre Ensemble in its 3rd theatre season
Thursday, Nov. 15, 2018 at 7 p.m.
Dennis Scott’s An Echo in the Bone is a Caribbean (Jamaican) theatre classic about the effects of slavery on African ancestors and descendants. Scott explores nine night, a ritual practice of ushering of the spirit of the dead to the afterlife, and to resolve some of these complexities through spirit possession and trance.
Malcauchon, or Six in the Rain
(by Derek Walcott)
Admission: Free - Donations* to the African Community Theatre fund encouraged
Reading, Directed by Dr. D. Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson
Performed by Caribbean Theatre class, Department of Pan-African Studies
Thursday, Nov. 29, 2018 at 2:30 p.m. - CANCELLED
Derek Walcott’s Malcauchon, or Six in the Rain is the story of a woodcutter Chantal, and people gathered under a hut from the rain for six versions of confessions describing the injustice and frailty of humanity.
*From the donations page, please check the box that says "I would like to enter my own designation" and type "African Community Theatre Fund."
The Calabash Kids: A Tale of Tanzania
Admission: $5:00 - free to KSU students, and youth 12 and under.
Written by Aaron Shepard
Directed by Dr. Asantewa Sunni-Ali
A Fulani Institute Academics and Arts Theatre Production
Saturday, Dec. 8, 2018 at 2 p.m.
This is a story about a lonely woman named Shindo from the Chagga tribe of North Tanzania near Mount Kilimanjaro. Shingo prays for children, and her prayers are answered when her calabashes unexpectedly change into children. Shingo learns that her words have more power than she thinks and to appreciate what she has.
Spring 2019
Digital Masks to Africa: Cheik Anta Diop – A Poem for the Living
(Based on Mwatabu Okantah’s epic poem, Cheik Anta Diop – A Poem for the Living)
Admission: $10 – free to KSU faculty, staff, and students
Devised and Directed by Dr. D. Amy-Rose Forbes-Erickson
Performed by the Pan-African Theatre Ensemble in its 3rd theatre season
Thursday, March 7, 2019 at 7 p.m.
Digital Masks to Africa: Cheik Anta Diop – A Poem for the Living is a newly devised piece about a philosophical and spiritual journey to Africa with a multilingual cast and digital masks, commemorating 400 years since the first Africans (20 Ndongans) landed in Jamestown, Virginia, USA. in 1619.
Stone + 50: The Riots Continue
Admission: Free - Donations* for the LGBTQ Emergency Fund encouraged
Devised and Directed by Dr. Daniel Nadon and Professor Lauren Vachon
Sponsored by the Center for Gender and Sexuality, Kent State University
Wednesday, March 20 and
Thursday, March 21, 2019 at 8 p.m.
*Please note that the dates printed in the ACT brochure were incorrect. These are the correct dates. We apologize for the inconvenience.
Stone + 50: The Riots Continue is a newly devised piece commemorating the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Greenwich Village, New York City.
*From the donations page, please search for "LGBTQ" under "Select a Program" and select the LGBTQ Emergency Scholarship Fund.
A.C.T. Solo Performance Festival, 2019
Admission: Free to KSU faculty, staff, and students
Workshop: Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 2:15 p.m.
Admission: $10 – free to KSU faculty, staff, and students
Showtime: Thursday, April 11, 2019 at 6:30 p.m.
A.C.T. Solo Performance Festival features new works by solo artists from Kent State University faculty, staff, and students, including Dr. Asantewa Sunni-Ali, Director of the Center for Pan-African Culture. Our special guest, Dr. Mary E. Weems will perform and conduct a workshop for students in the African American Theatre course, and Kent State University community.
Dr. Mary E. Weems is an accomplished author, poet, playwright, and social/cultural foundations scholar. Author of thirteen books, most recently: Blackeyed: Plays and Monologues, and Writings of Healing and Resistance: Empathy and the Imagination-Intellect. In 2015, Dr. Weems was awarded the Emerging Artist Award in Literature for her play MEAT, about the murder of eleven black women by Anthony Sowell in Cleveland, Ohio, her hometown. Career highlights include winning Kent State University’s Wick Chapbook Award, nomination for a Pushcart prize, becoming a finalist in the 2008 and 2012 Ohioana Book award competitions and winning the Chilcote Award from Cleveland Public Theater.