Today and Tomorrow: Cold Keener by Zora Neale Hurston
A collaboration between No Exit Theatre Collective and Black Shakespeare Project
Fortnightly Reading Series
CYCLE ONE: RADICAL TRANSITIONS
Cold Keener (1930) is a "revue" with nine skits that are unrelated in their themes, characters, or even their settings, which include Georgia, Harlem, Florida, the Bahamas, and a jook joint. Cold Keener illustrates Hurston's concept of "primitive angularity" in dramatic structure--the parts are linked only by their differences. With this fresh approach, she hoped to challenge the African-American stereotypes derived from minstrel shows and thus contribute to the formation of a "real Negro theater."
Friday, 4/9 @ 5:30pm ET: Color, Culture, and Comedy: Conversations On Black American Theatre, Cultural Agency, and Storytelling
Facilitators:
Bryanna Bradley, Dramaturg for Cold Keener
Courtney Bryan Devon, Executive Director of No Exit Theatre Collective
Ray Dubois, Artistic Director of Black Shakespeare Project
Saturday, 4/10 @ 7:00pm ET: Cold Keener Reading + Talk-back
Director: Courtney Bryan Devon
Ensemble:
Anita Okoye
Eliana Anneliscia Rowe
Essynce Victoria
Na'zir Postell
Sade Murray
Ray Dubois
Dramaturg: Bryanna Bradley
This reading and the attached teach-in are FREE of charge to our audience. You can RSVP now through Eventbrite. Donations are much appreciated as 80% would go to the artists involved. 20% from the teach-in will go to Black Shakespeare Project, 20% from the performance will go to No Exit Theatre Collective.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)is a Black American playwright, author, and anthropologist. She identified as her hometown Eatonville, Florida, the first African-American incorporated township. Hurston knew the songs and the subjects of her plays from her own upbringing and her professional folklore research in the African-American South. During the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Hurston traveled the American South collecting and recording the sounds and songs of her people; her research in Haiti is reflected in the voodoo scenes and beliefs woven into several of the plays.
Learn more about the play, context, and history at our Friday 4/9 Teach-In, and then join us for an incredible performance the next day!