The Contemporary Drama Working Group has announced its fall 2014 season of new play readings! It's going to be an extraordinary semester. I am so pleased to get to work with such astonishingly talented people. If you're in town, come out to our Wednesday afternoon readings. And stay tuned for announcements about the spring!
Learn more about the plays in our fall line-up here.
At Buffalo has an amazing new website. Check it out here. This is the best place to keep up with the show as we continue to develop it.
Later this month, I will be traveling to South Africa to participate in the Johannesburg Workshop in Theory and Criticism's 2014 session, "Archives of the Non-Racial." It promises to be a fascinating and challenging 13 days. Check out the schedule of public events here, and come if you can!
AT BUFFALO, the new musical I'm developing with Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin and Khalil Sullivan, is coming to the New York Musical Theatre Festival this July. David Mendizábal will direct a public reading of the piece on Thursday, July 17 at 4PM and 8PM and on Sunday, July 20 at 7PM. Produced by the amazing Deadria Harrington. Admission is free. For more information, see: nymf.org/atbuffalo
This week, the Contemporary Drama Working Group - which I co-founded in 2012 with my friend and colleague Takeo Rivera - closed out its second season of new play readings with Ricardo Bracho's The Dweller. I could not be more pleased at everything we've been able to accomplish, and how much our phenomenal students have grown over the course of our time together. Many thanks to them, to Takeo, and to Caitlin Marshall, our amazing co-director for this year. Keep your eye on CDWG's website over the summer as we plan our 2014-2015 season!
I am very pleased to announce that I have been selected to direct Eugene Ionesco's Rhinoceros as part of the U.C. Berkeley Department of Theater, Dance & Performance Studies' 2014-2015 season. The show will run for two weeks in November. More details to follow!
In January 2014, I attended the Dallas Safari Club's annual big game hunting convention in order to learn more about the organization and its plans to auction off the right to "bag" a critically endangered black rhinoceros in Namibia. Blunderbuss Magazine has just published the essay, "A Roomful of Shooters and Nothing to Shoot," that I wrote about my experiences. Enjoy!
I'm very pleased to share my work with some of my Africanist colleagues at two exciting venues this month and next.
On Wednesday, March 26th, at 2PM, I'll be lecturing on "The Politics of Animality in Kenyan Cultural Production, 1933-1991" at the Wangari Maathai Institute for Peace and Environmental Studies at the University of Nairobi, where I am an affiliated researcher.
And then, on Wednesday, April 9th, at 1:30PM I'll be presenting my work on Ebrahim Hussein, Julius Nyerere and the politics of the uncanny at the African Literature Association's 2014 conference in Johannesburg. My panel is "Ghosts, Zombies and the Uncanny," and I can hardly imagine a better forum in which to explore my ideas.
The amazing poet-playwright Takeo Rivera - who just so happens to be a friend and collaborator of mine - is bringing his award-winning play Goliath back home to the West Coast. Check it out on January 27th at Stanford, January 28th at U.C. Berkeley and January 29th at U.C. Santa Cruz. More details here.
At Buffalo, the new musical I'm working on with Amma Ghartey-Tagoe Kootin and Khalil Sullivan, was just given a splendid workshop production by the students of the University of Colorado, Boulder. Thanks and congratulations to everyone involved!