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► Why Nijla Mu’min is a Director to Watch
Today on The Scene my guest is filmmaker and writer Nijla Mu’min. Mu’min’s short film “Two Bodies” has screened at festivals across the country, including the Pan African Film Festival, Outfest,...
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6 Women Working in the Arts: A Springtime Selection
It’s spring (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere)! So many new things going and growing in the world. Are you starting a 100 Days Project? I think mine will be reading and writing about gender...
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► Why “The Haven” Is a Must-See Web Series
Welcome back to The Scene, today with guests Mia McCullough and Elizabeth Laidlaw. Mia is a playwright and screenwriter. Her plays have been published by Smith & Kraus, Broadway Play Publishing and...
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When Will Janet Jackson Get The Respect She Deserves?
I’ve wanted to write about Justin Timberlake performing at the upcoming Super Bowl LII halftime show for a while. I held off at first because he wasn’t confirmed but then, after the news came out,...
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Meghan Markle Is More Than “Descended From Slaves”
Reading, watching and listening to coverage of the recent engagement between soon-to-be-former-actress Meghan Markle and Prince Harry reveals a lot about how we think of race. “Descended from slaves”...
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How “Mudbound” Smartly Deconstructs the Mammy Myth
Mudbound was one of the most moving and well-crafted movies I’ve seen in recent years. It is the newest film and critical darling from director Dee Rees, which tells the story of two young men, one...
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In the Age of #MeToo, I’m Thinking About Yuja Wang
The international renown of superstar pianist Yuja Wang stems from her artistry, of course. Back in 2012, the San Francisco Chronicle called her the “most dazzlingly, uncannily gifted pianist in the...
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Elizabeth Catlett Sculpts Black Women Ready for Revolution
Mahalia Jackson’s head is thrown back, her eyes are closed and she has a beatific smile on her face. Her hands are raised to the sky and the twisting folds of the lower part of her dress suggest...
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Orlandersmith Finds Documentary Theater in Ferguson, MO
In her resonant work Forever, first staged at Center Theatre Group in 2014 and then New York Theatre Workshop in spring 2015, playwright and performer Dael Orlandersmith includes herself as a character...
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The Year of Empowered Women
Last weekend marked the end of the first year of the Trump Presidency. And to celebrate, millions of women marched! Kidding. Millions of women did march across the country, but not in celebration of...
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My Feminism Will Not Be Intersectional
And then pussy hats happened. For the uninitiated (and trust me, if you are uninitiated you probably want to stay that way), the pink pussy hats are the brainchild of Jayna Zweiman and Krista Suh, who...
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Adrienne Kennedy’s New Play of Love, Race and Puppets
Details of her own rich biography are fodder for Adrienne Kennedy’s new, poetic theatrical work, He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box, running at Theatre for a New Audience. Kennedy’s birth to an uneasy...
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‘Saint Joan’ On Broadway: Shaw’s Timeless Gift to Powerful Women
Theatergoers hankering for plays that deal extravagantly in issues and language know they’ll find it in anything and everything written by the tireless George Bernard Shaw — or Bernard Shaw, as...
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On Stage Now: The US Women Who Served in Vietnam
Thousands of young American women were sent to Vietnam — at least 7,500, according to one source. Whatever the total number was, if you don’t think we talk enough about their stories, then In Their...
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Artists Warned Us: Children in Cages Will Be Treated Like Animals
The United States government is keeping would-be refugee and immigrant children in cages, disappeared from their parents, inside what, by all appearances, look like concentration camps. This, of...
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Niegel Smith of The Flea Theater Will Make Us “Color Brave”
Today on The Scene my guest is Niegel Smith, artistic director of The Flea, one of NYC’s leading Off-Off-Broadway companies. Starting this August, The Flea begins a new season of “color brave”...
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‘Being a Dancer Is Fun and All, But What’s Your Real Job?’
I live in Washington, DC. As such, I have enjoyed a front-row seat to the political debauchery of the Trump administration’s 19-month reign. I, like many others I know, nervously scroll for the latest...
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Punishing Faith Fennidy For Her Black Hair Is What’s Unnatural
On Mon., Aug. 20, Faith Fennidy, an 11-year-old Black girl, was kicked out of her private school — Christ the King Parish School, in Terrytown, LA — because her hair was braided. Think about that. For...
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How Katherine Dunham Embodied Activism (and What It Means Now)
Those familiar with the legacy of Katherine Dunham (1909-2006) know that her choreography not only exposed her audiences to cultural material that had yet to reach the US during her time, but also...
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Black Power Art Raises a Fist at the Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is taking the current, horrific state of American identity politics very seriously, and I am here for it. Over the last couple of years, the museum has showcased work by “Black...
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