The Project at the Dumas Arts Festival! and VA Radio Appearance

Great News!

Kalimah is screening her film work for the project (so far! ) on the 22nd at the Dumas Arts Festival in Roanoke, VA. Congratulations Kalimah!

Kalimah is our treasured filmmaestro and also a junior film studies major at Hollins University in VA. She was also interviewed about the project this past week on a Virginia radio station.
Details on date and time coming soon. Anyone in the VA area you should definitely go!
There's gonna be some sweet stuff going on. More info can be found here.

Join us on Feb. 22-24 for the first Dumas Arts Festival! A cooperative effort between the Dumas Drama Guild and the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University, the festival will celebrate African American theatre, film and poetry. The centerpiece of the weekend will be a staged reading of Clinton Johnston's "Am I Black Enough Yet?" on Feb. 23.

The Friday schedule includes a screening of If the People Could Fly by Kalimah Abioto. (For more details on Kalimah's work, click here: If the People Could Fly.) The evening will end with musical excerpts from the upcoming Hollins University production of Tony Kushner's "Caroline, or Change," directed by Ernie Zulia.

In addition to Clinton Johnston's play, Saturday's schedule includes free workshops in acting and poetry, as well as an exhibition poetry slam in the afternoon. The festival concludes with a jazz concert on Sunday afternoon that will include poetry readings by T. J. Anderson III.

Tickets are $15 for Friday, $10 for the Saturday night play, and $15 for Sunday. A festival pass for all three days is $35, or $50 per couple. Students and seniors are half price! To reserve your tickets, call 540-342-5740 or 800-317-6455.

Featured Participants

T. J. Anderson III has had his creative and critical work appear in Black Renaissance Noire, Sulfur, African American Literature Review, and Callaloo. He is the author of At Last Round Up a chapbook of poetry, a critical book on jazz poetry Notes to Make the Sound Come Right: Four Innovators of Jazz Poetry, and the Spoken Word CD Blood Octave. A former Senior Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, Anderson currently teaches at Hollins University in Roanoke, VA.

Clinton Johnston, a member of the theatre faculty at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA, is the author of "Am I Black Enough Yet?" He received his MFA in directing from the University of Virginia. Along with over a decade of experience acting and directing in local theaters, he has assistant directed with nationally renowned directors Sabin Ebstein and Bill Rauch. Clinton will be entering the Playwright's Lab at Hollins University in the coming summer to pursue his MFA in dramatic writing.

Amy Gerber-Stroh, who will discuss African-American film, has produced and directed more than 30 documentaries and art films. She has had significant professional film experience in Hollywood and New York, working on several 'B-movie' features by Roger Corman and as casting associate on twelve major motion pictures, including Goldeneye and The Mask of Zorro. Her documentary feature, Public Memory, was completed in 2004. She earned her MFA from California Institute of the Arts, School of Film/Video. She is a member of the film faculty at Hollins University.

Ernie Zulia, who will direct the excerpts from Tony Kushner's "Caroline, or Change," has directed more than 100 productions of plays, musicals, operas, and world premieres in theatres around the United States and internationally. His stage adaptation of Robert Fulghum's international best-selling book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, has been produced around the world. He served as associate artistic director at Virginia's Mill Mountain Theatre and is currently an artistic associate at Apple Tree Theatre in Chicago, where he has been nominated for Chicago's prestigious Joseph Jefferson Award as best director. He has directed main stage productions at various regional theatres including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Syracuse Stage, and the Asolo Theatre.

Lenora Inez Brown will discuss African American theatre prior to the reading of "Am I Black Enough Yet?" While serving as the literary manager and dramaturg for the Crossroads Theatre Company, the nation's leading African-American theater, the theater received the 1999 Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre. She was part of the artistic leadership for Crossroads' new play festival, the Genesis Festival. Lenora has been a guest dramaturg for the Sundance Theatre Lab 2000 and 2001, The Southern Writer's Project at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Kennedy Center's Youth and Family Program's New Visons/New Voices and the Cleveland Play House. She teaches dramaturgy at The Theatre School at DePaul University, and she will be visiting dramaturg this summer for the Playwright’s Lab at Hollins University. Lenora holds a B.A. in art history from Dartmouth College and an MFA in dramaturgy from the Yale School of Drama.

Dwayne Yancey is a Roanoke Valley journalist, playwright and author. By day, he is a senior editor at The Roanoke Times. In what's left of his spare time, he writes plays. He's had scripts produced in 38 states and 6 foreign countries, the most frequently-produced of which is the one-act "Hamlet on Spring Break." His shorter work is frequently seen at No Shame Theatre at Mill Mountain Theatre on Friday nights. Two of his No Shame pieces, "White Goes First" and "Dodger Blue," will be presented at the Dumas Arts Festival on Feb. 22. Yancey also is the author of "When Hell Froze Over," about former Virginia Gov. Doug Wilder's political career. He lives with his wife and two children in Fincastle, VA.

Dumas Arts Festival will be Feb. 22-24, 2008! Call 540-342-5740 for tickets!