video excerpts of the productions of GREENWAY Arts Alliance
Blacksmyths was created to support and nurture
the diverse voices of black playwrights. A highly talented group of writers
are given an opportunity to develop their craft through a yearlong workshop.
The group produces a June symposium during which staged readings and
workshop productions are presented.
Kim Euell, director of the Mark Taper Forum's
Blacksmyths Play Development and Playwrights Lab, has announced the schedule
for the upcoming Juneteenth reading series. This year's festival will
present seven plays by seven African American playwrights at two venues over
four days: June 11 at the Mark Taper Forum Annex (601 West Temple St. in
downtown Los Angeles), and June 116-18 at GREENWAY Court Theatre (544 N.
Fairfax Ave. on the campus of Fairfax High School in Los Angeles). The seven
plays are: "The Giver" by Kim Dunbar in which an ex-patriot African American
woman returns to confront the wealthy woman for whom her now deceased mother
worked as a maid; Kira Arne's "Baby Jane's Shangri-La," a comic peek behind
the-scenes at the employees of a neighborhood peep show; "The Called" by
Eugene Lee is a period piece with a cappella gospel music set in 1957 that
explores the characters of two ministers, one saintly and one fallen; Dig
Wayne's "French Provincial" tells of a man who learns that his family has
changed during his time in prison; Kim Yvonne Euell's "The Diva Daughters
Dupree," a comic drama that looks at what happens when three strong-willed
sisters converge on the family homestead and Hallie S. Hobson's "The
Mahogany Millionaire: The Life and Times of Madame C.J. Walker," a
historically-based play that chronicles the life of the first female African
American millionaire.
