André De Shields as W.E.B. Du Bois with Erin Cherry, who play his daughter Yolande, in Charles Smith's Knock Me A Kiss. Photo by Lia Chang
On Monday, November 14, 2011, Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Co.’s production of Charles Smith’s Knock Me a Kiss was the toast of the 39th Annual AUDELCO “VIV” Awards, given in recognition of Black Excellence in Theatre, at Harlem Stages within Aaron Davis Hall, located at the Marion Anderson Theatre, on 133th Street and Convent Avenue in New York City.
Morocco Omari, André De Shields, Marie Thomas, Erin Cherry, Sean Phillips, Gillian Glasco of Knock Me a Kiss have all been nominated for 2011 Audelco Awards. Photo by Lia Chang
In addition to top honors for Best Dramatic Play, Knock Me a Kiss won 9 of the 13 categories for which was it was nominated: André De Shields (Lead Actor), Marie Thomas (Supporting Actress), Charles Smith (Playwright), Chuck Smith (Director-Dramatic), Shirley Prendergast (Lighting), Ali Turns (Costumes), Anthony Davidson (Set Design) and Bill Toles (Sound Design).
Knock Me a Kiss is a fictional account inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ (Andre De Shields) daughter Yolande (Erin Cherry) to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen (Sean Phillips). The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost Black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry but fails to be a union of man and woman.
Recipient of the Board of Director’s Award – Rome Neal, Jackie Jeffries, Jacquetta L. McMurray
Outstanding Pioneer Awards went to Felix E. Cochren, Mary Alice Smith, James Pringle
Special Achievement Awards: Clifford B. Simmons (Blue Nile Passage), Journalist, Playwright and Director Hazel Rosetta Smith, Fortune Society and the Significant Elders group
AUDELCO’s Rising Star Award: Eden Sanaa Duncan Smith (Lion King), (Fences) is a youth radio host on the Aunt Jewel’s Bedtime Stories show on Blakeradio.com, Rainbow Soul.
Honorary chairs for the 39th Annual AUDELCO Awards were LaTanya Richardson Jackson, Samuel L. Jackson, Hattie Winston and Harold Wheeler.
André De Shields as W.E.B. Du Bois with Erin Cherry, who play his daughter Yolande, in Charles Smith's Knock Me A Kiss. Photo by Lia Chang
When the 2011 Vivian Robinson/Audelco Awards are handed out at the HarlemStage/Aaron Davis Hall 133rd Street & Convent Avenue in New York on Monday, November 14,2011, I’ll be rooting for Woodie King Jr’s New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Co. production of Knock Me A Kiss, which has been nominated for 13 Audelcos.
Morocco Omari, André De Shields, Marie Thomas, Erin Cherry, Sean Phillips, Gillian Glasco of Knock Me a Kiss have all been nominated for 2011 Audelco Awards. Photo by Lia Chang
The nominations include Charles Smith for Playwriting; André De Shields for Lead Actor; Erin Cherry for Lead Actress; Chuck Smith for Director of a Dramatic Production; Gillian Glasco for Supporting Actress; Marie Thomas for Supporting Actress; Sean Phillips for Supporting Actor; Morocco Omari for Supporting Actor; Shirley Prendergast for Lighting; Anthony Davidson for Set Design; Ali Turns for Costume Design; Bill Toles for Sound Design; and New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Co. for Dramatic Production of the Year.
Knock Me a Kiss is a fictional account inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ daughter Yolande to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost Black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry but fails to be a union of man and woman.
The awards promote and celebrate African-American involvement in American Theatre. Samuel L. Jackson and his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson are serving as Honorary Co-Chairpersons for this year’s event. NY-1 Anchor Cheryl Wills and Def Poetry Jam co-founder Danny Simmons will be the co-hosts for the ceremony.
The Awards presentation kicks off at 6:30pm, followed by a gala reception from 10pm-11pm. Tickets are on sale now ($150 orchestra, $75 mezzanine and $35 balcony). For tickets, call (212) 368-6906.
Location:
HarlemStage/Aaron Davis Hall, Inc
133RD STREET & CONVENT AVENUE,
NEW YORK
Complete List of 2011 AUDELCO Nominees LIGHTING DESIGN
Avan (Brothers from the Bottom)
James “Prez” Carter (The Shaneequa Chronicles)
Jeff Croiter (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
Shirley Prendergast (Knock Me a Kiss)
Colin D. Young (Henry V)
SET DESIGN
Felix E. Cochren (The Legend of Buster Neal)
Felix E. Cochren (The Right Reverend Dupree in Exile)
Chris Cumberbatch (The Shaneequa Chronicles)
Anthony Davidson (Knock Me a Kiss)
Neil Patel (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
COSTUME DESIGN
Rachel Dozier-Ezell (Henry V)
ESosa (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
Helen L. Simmons-Collen (The Right Reverend Dupree in Exile)
Ali Turns (Knock Me a Kiss)
David Withrow (Antony & Cleopatra)
SOUND DESIGN
John Gromada (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
Patricia Ju (Henry V)
Sean O’Halloran (Cool Blues)
Bill Toles (Knock Me a Kiss)
David D. Wright (Antony & Cleopatra)
DIRECTOR/DRAMATIC PRODUCTION
Jackie Alexander (The Legend of Buster Neal)
Jo Bonney (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
Thomas Kail (When I Come to Die)
Petronia Paley (Antony & Cleopatra)
Chuck Smith (Knock Me a Kiss)
DIRECTOR/MUSICAL PRODUCTION
Daniel Beaty (Tearing Down the Walls)
Lee Kirk (The Widow and Miss Mamie)
Lorna Littleway (Juneteenth Blues Cabaret)
Alfred Preisser (It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues)
Ronald Wyche (Do Wop Love)
CHOREOGRAPHER
Leslie Dockery (The Shaneequa Chronicles)
Dell Howlett (Tearing Down the Walls)
Tracy Jack (It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues)
Michelle M. Robinson (Do Wop Love)
PLAYWRIGHT
Jackie Alexander (The Legend of Buster Neal)
Nathan Louis Jackson (When I Come to Die)
Lynn Nottage (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
Roger Parris (Nobody Knew Where They Was)
Charles Smith (Knock Me a Kiss)
Eric Bogosian, John Earl Jelks, Lynn Nottage and Jo Bonney at the opening night party of "By the Way, Meet Vera Stark" on May 9, 2011. Photo by Lia Chang
SUPPORTING ACTOR
Daniel Breaker (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
André Holland (The Whipping Man)
Morocco Omari (Knock Me a Kiss)
Sean Phillips (Knock Me a Kiss)
Jay Ward (Cool Blues)
Gillian Glasco, Erin Cherry and Morocco Omari in Knock Me a Kiss. Photo by Lia Chang
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Gillian Glasco (Knock Me a Kiss)
Kimberly Hébert Gregory (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark)
Marie Thomas (Knock Me a Kiss)
Amanda Mason Warren (When I Come to Die)
Erin Cherry and Marie Thomas Photo by Lia Chang
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN A MUSICAL – FEMALE
Marvel Allen (The Widow and Miss Mamie)
Dameka Hayes (It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues)
Jannie Jones (Juneteenth Blues Cabaret)
Adrienne C. Moore (Tearing Down the Walls)
Toni Seawright (The Widow and Miss Mamie)
Kimberly Hébert Gregory Photo by Lia Chang
OUTSTANDING PERFORMANCE IN A MUSICAL – MALE
Gerald Latham (It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues)
Jevon McFerrin (Tearing Down the Walls)
Tommie Thompson (The Widow and Miss Mamie)
OUTSTANDING MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Jeffrey Bolding (It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues)
Ron Granger (The Widow and Miss Mamie)
Charles Mack (Tearing Down the Walls)
Bert Price (Do Wop Love)
Ivan Thomas (Juneteenth Blues Cabaret)
MUSICAL PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR Do Wop Love (National Black Theatre) It Ain’t Nothin’ But the Blues (New Haarlem Arts Theatre) Juneteenth Blues Cabaret (Juneteenth LegacyTheatre) Tearing Down the Walls (New Heritage/Riverside Theatre/WalkTall Girl) The Widow and Miss Mamie (Lee Kirk Productions)
OUTSTANDING ENSEMBLE PERFORMANCE Accept “Except” (National Black Theatre) Born Bad (Soho Rep) Do Wop Love (National Black Theatre) Playing with Heiner Müller (Castillo Theatre) The Legend of Buster Neal (Billie Holiday Theatre)
SOLO PERFORMANCE
Stephanie Berry (The Shaneequa Chronicles)
Miche Braden (The Devil’s Music: The Life and Blues of Bessie Smith)
Cheryl Howard (The Sensational Josephine Baker)
Nilaja Sun (No Child)
LEAD ACTOR
André Braugher (The Whipping Man)
Chris Chalk (When I Come to Die)
André De Shields (Knock Me a Kiss)
Ty Jones (Henry V)
Ralph McCain (The Right Reverend Dupree in Exile)
Marcus Naylor (Cool Blues)
LEAD ACTRESS
Debra Ann Byrd (Antony & Cleopatra)
Erin Cherry (Knock Me a Kiss)
Terria Joseph (Cool Blues)
Sanaa Lathan (By the Way, Meet Vera Stark) Kimberlee Monroe (Nobody Knew Where They Was)
DRAMATIC PRODUCTION OF THE YEAR Antony & Cleopatra (Take Wing And Soar Productions) By the Way, Meet Vera Stark (2nd Stage) Knock Me a Kiss (New Federal Theatre/Legacy Creative Arts Co.) The Legend of Buster Neal (Billie Holiday Theatre) When I Come to Die (Lincoln Center Theatre)
From August 2-4, 2011, Two-time Tony Award Nominee and Emmy Award-Winning actor André De Shields will reprise his critically acclaimed role as W.E.B. DuBois in Charles Smith’s Knock Me A Kiss, directed by Chuck Smith, at The National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, a co-production of Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre and Legacy Creative Arts Company.
Performances are Tuesday, August 2 @ 8pm, Wednesday, August 3 @ 3pm and 8pm, and Thursday, August 4 @ 8pm, at the Hanesbrands Theatre – Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts, 209 N. Spruce Street in Winston-Salem, NC. Tickets are $40 and can be purchased online.
The cast also features Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois, Gillian Glasco as Lenora, Morocco Omari as Jimmy Lunceford, Sean Phillips as Countee Cullen, and Marie Thomas as Nina Du Bois.
The New York Times called Knock Me A Kiss “a dandy play about the ill-advised marriage of W. E. B. Du Bois’s daughter,” and went on to say “suchrollicking fun that you may find yourself worrying at the intermission about whether there’s any way this production can successfully work itself around to the serious part of the story that you know lies ahead. But somehow it does, keeping its sense of humor but muzzling it just enough to allow some drama and poignancy to enter the mix. There are moments in the second act when the play seems less like a work about the past and more like a work from the past… an engaging, well-acted production that deserves a better theater and a longer run.”
Knock Me a Kiss is a fictional account inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ daughter Yolande to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost Black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry but fails to be a union of man and woman.
Erin Cherry and Marie Thomas Photo by Lia Chang
Larry Leon Hamlin founded the National Black Theatre Festival® in 1989. His goal was to unite black theatre companies in America and ensure the survival of the genre into the next millennium. With the support of Dr. Maya Angelou, who served as the Festival’s first Chairperson, NBTF was born. The ’89 Festival offered 30 performances by 17 of America’s best professional black theatre companies. It attracted national and international media coverage. According to The New York Times, “the 1989 National Black Theatre Festival® was one of the most historic and culturally significant events in the history of black theatre and American theatre in general.” Over 10,000 people attended. It lived up to its theme: An International Celebration and Reunion of Spirit. The NBTF enables Black theatre professionals to express cultural values and perspectives inherent to the African Diaspora candidly, dramatically and powerfully. Staged components of the NBTF foster the creation and sharing of new works while educational components document and preserve the history and traditions of the genre. Intense week-long interactions focus on renewing their commitment to preserve professional Black theatre and to revitalize its genre. Held biennially, the NBTF attracts more than 65,000 people during the six-day event. The 2011 National Black Theatre Festival will be held in Winston-Salem, NC, August 1 – August 6.
André De Shields as W.E.B. Du Bois with Erin Cherry, who play his daughter Yolande, in Charles Smith's Knock Me A Kiss. Photo by Lia Chang
In a career that has spanned four decades, De Shields is best known for his electrifying performances in the original Broadway productions of The Wiz in 1975 (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978 (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! in 1997 (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty in 2000, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. His other Broadway credits include an autobiographical revue, Haarlem Nocturne, and the world premier of two new American plays: Mark Medoff’s Prymate (Drama Desk nomination) and Michael Jacob’s Impressionism, with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award, the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical/Male. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his performance in the 1982 NBC broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. New York theatre audiences have seen De Shields in productions as varied as Cato at The Flea, as the farmer Old Banks opposite Charlayne Woodard, in the Red Bull Theater’s Off-Broadway production of The Witch of Edmonton at The Theatre at St. Clement’s, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor at the Melting Pot Theatre, Let Me Sing at The George Street Playhouse, Lonnie Carter’s The Gulliver Trilogy at La MaMa e.t.c. and his solo work-in-progress Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance at The Abingdon Theatre about abolitionist Frederick Douglass. At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has been seen as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, CALIGULA and King Lear, directed by Alfred Preisser. Regional audiences have witnessed him as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Scott Joplin in Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Jacob Strand in Ibsen’s Ghosts (starring Jane Alexander), and the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. He recently appeared as the title character of Charles Smith’s The Gospel According to James, directed by Chuck Smith at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater in Chicago. Upcoming projects include directing a staged reading of Jacqueline Malcolm’s The Trade at The Player’s Club in New York on July 19; jetting off to Italy after the Festival to be a teaching artist at the 1st Annual La MaMa Umbria International Master Acting Workshops; and directing the New Jersey-based Crossroads Theatre Company’s production of the Fats Waller revue Ain’t Misbehavin’, October 6-24. A triple Capricorn, he is the ninth of eleven children born and reared in Baltimore, Maryland. www.andredeshields.com.
Playwright Charles Smith is a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, alumni playwright of the Tony Award-winning New Dramatists in New York, and Head of the Professional Playwriting Program at Ohio University. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway and around the country by theaters such as Victory Gardens, The Acting Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Penumbra, Ujima Theatre Company, St. Louis Black Rep, New Federal Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theater. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers Project, the International Children’s Theater Festival in Seattle, and the North Carolina Black Arts Festival. His play Pudd’nhead Wilson enjoyed a 22 city national tour and his plays Takunda and City of Gold enjoyed tours of the west coast. His other plays include Free Man of Color, which recently premiered in Australia after being awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award and John W. Schmid Award, both for Outstanding New Work. He is also author of two Emmy Award-winning teleplays, “Fast Break to Glory” and “Pequito.” A graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and recipient of the 2008 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Smith has received commissions from Victory Gardens, The Goodman, Seattle Rep, Indiana Rep, The Acting Company, and Ohio University. His most recent work, The Gospel According to James, was commissioned by Indiana Rep and is the result of a Joyce Award. The Gospel According to James received its World Premiere production at Indiana Rep and had a success run this Spring at the Victory Gardens Biograph in Chicago.
Director Chuck Smith has had 25 years of experience in African-American theater. He is resident director of the Goodman Theatre, where he has directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, A Christmas Carol, and Vivisections from the Blown Mind. Smith is a founding member of the Chicago Theatre Company, where he was artistic director for four seasons, staging plays including Sizwe Banzi is Dead, Fathers and Other Strangers, Suspenders, the Jeff-winning musical Po’, and The Meeting. He has also directed at Fleetwood-Jourdain, The New Regal, Kuumba, Pegasus Players, New Federal Theater, ETA Creative Arts, Columbia College, and Chicago Black Ensemble Theater. He is also artistic director of the Chicago Historical Society’s Voices in History program and an artist-in-residence at Columbia College Chicago, where he facilitates the Theodore Ward playwriting contest.
Woodie King Jr. is the Founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre. Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre has presented over 200 productions in its 40-year history. Mr. King has produced and directed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in Regional Theatres, and in universities across the United States. He co-produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (first produced by NFT and Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre), What the Wine Sellers Buy, Reggae and The Taking of Miss Janie (Drama Critics Circle Award). His directional credits are extensive and include work in film as well as theater. For more information, visit www.newfederaltheatre.org/
As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden. Lia currently plays Nurse Lia on “One Life to Live”. She has appeared in Wolf, New Jack City, A Kiss Before Dying, King of New York, Big Trouble in Little China, The Last Dragon, Taxman and “New York Undercover”.
Selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space are now in the newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.
André De Shields leads the cast as W.E.B. Du Bois, of Charles Smith’s Knock Me a Kiss, directed by Chuck Smith, which kicks off Woodie King Jr’s New Federal Theatre’s season tonight at Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center/Recital Hall (466 Grand Street) in New York at 7:30pm. Opening night is set for Sunday, November 21, with performances through December 5.
The cast features Erin Cherry as Yolande Du Bois, Gillian Glasco as Lenora , Morocco Omari as Jimmy Lunceford, Sean Phillips as Countee Cullen, and Marie Thomas as Nina Du Bois. Knock Me a Kiss has set design by Anthony Davidson, costume design by Ali Turns, lighting design by Shirley Prendergast, and sound design by Bill Toles.
Knock Me a Kiss is a fictional account inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ daughter Yolande to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost Black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry but fails to be a union of man and woman.
Erin Cherry and Marie Thomas Photo by Lia Chang
Performances are Wednesday through Friday evenings at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 3 PM and 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM. No performance Thanksgiving, November 25th; special added performance Tuesday, November 30th at 7:30 PM.
Tickets are $25 and can be ordered by phone at 212/352-3101. For more information, please visit www.newfederaltheatre.org or call NFT at 212-353-1176.
Performances for Knock Me a Kiss are at Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center/RecitAl Hall, 466 Grand Street (between Pitt & Willett Streets). By subway: “F” train to Delancey Street; “M” and “J” train to Essex Street; or by “M14A” bus to Pitt Street.
André De Shields as W.E.B. Du Bois with Erin Cherry, who play his daughter Yolande, in Charles Smith's Knock Me A Kiss. Photo by Lia Chang
André De Shields recently dazzled in The John W. Engeman’s production of DAMN YANKEES, this summer in Northport. In a career that has spanned four decades, De Shields is best known for his electrifying performances in the original Broadway productions of The Wiz in 1975 (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978 (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! in 1997 (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty in 2000, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. His other Broadway credits include an autobiographical revue, Haarlem Nocturne, and the world premier of two new American plays: Mark Medoff’s Prymate (Drama Desk nomination) and Michael Jacob’s Impressionism, with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award, the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical/Male. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his performance in the 1982 NBC broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. New York theatre audiences have seen De Shields in productions as varied as Cato at The Flea, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor at the Melting Pot Theatre, Let Me Sing at The George Street Playhouse, Lonnie Carter’s The Gulliver Trilogy at La MaMa e.t.c. and his solo work-in-progress Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance at The Abingdon Theatre about abolitionist Frederick Douglass. At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has been seen as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, CALIGULA and King Lear, directed by Alfred Preisser. Regional audiences have witnessed him as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Scott Joplin in Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Jacob Strand in Ibsen’s Ghosts (starring Jane Alexander), and the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Playwright Charles Smith is a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, alumni playwright of the Tony Award-winning New Dramatists in New York, and Head of the Professional Playwriting Program at Ohio University. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway and around the country by theaters such as Victory Gardens, The Acting Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Penumbra, Ujima Theatre Company, St. Louis Black Rep, New Federal Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theater. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers Project, the International Children’s Theater Festival in Seattle, and the North Carolina Black Arts Festival. His play Pudd’nhead Wilson enjoyed a 22 city national tour and his plays Takunda and City of Gold enjoyed tours of the west coast. His other plays include Free Man of Color, which recently premiered in Australia after being awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award and John W. Schmid Award, both for Outstanding New Work. He is also author of two Emmy Award-winning teleplays, “Fast Break to Glory” and “Pequito.” A graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and recipient of the 2008 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Smith has received commissions from Victory Gardens, The Goodman, Seattle Rep, Indiana Rep, The Acting Company, and Ohio University. His most recent work, The Gospel According to James, was commissioned by Indiana Rep and is the result of a Joyce Award. The Gospel According to James received its World Premiere production at Indiana Rep and will subsequently be produced by Victory Gardens in Chicago.
Director Chuck Smith has had 25 years of experience in African-American theater. He is resident director of the Goodman Theatre, where he has directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, A Christmas Carol, and Vivisections from the Blown Mind. Smith is a founding member of the Chicago Theatre Company, where he was artistic director for four seasons, staging plays including Sizwe Banzi is Dead, Fathers and Other Strangers, Suspenders, the Jeff-winning musical Po’, and The Meeting. He has also directed at Fleetwood-Jourdain, The New Regal, Kuumba, Pegasus Players, New Federal Theater, ETA Creative Arts, Columbia College, and Chicago Black Ensemble Theater. He is also artistic director of the Chicago Historical Society’s Voices in History program and an artist-in-residence at Columbia College Chicago, where he facilitates the Theodore Ward playwriting contest.
Woodie King Jr. is the Founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre. Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre has presented over 200 productions in its 40-year history. Mr. King has produced and directed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in Regional Theatres, and in universities across the United States. He co-produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (first produced by NFT and Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre), What the Wine Sellers Buy, Reggae and The Taking of Miss Janie (Drama Critics Circle Award). His directional credits are extensive and include work in film as well as theater.
As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden.
This year, selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space will become part of newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.
Andre De Shields portrays W.E.B. Du Bois in Charles Smith’s Knock Me a Kiss at Henry Street Settlement's Abrons Arts Center/Recital Hall (466 Grand Street) from November 11 through December 5. Photo by Lia Chang
Woodie King Jr’s New Federal Theatre’s first production of the season is Charles Smith’s Knock Me a Kiss, which will have performances at Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center/Recital Hall (466 Grand Street), from November 11 through December 5. Opening night is set for Sunday, November 21st. Chuck Smith directs a cast that features Erin Cherry, André De Shields, Gillian Glasco, Morocco Omari, Sean Phillips, and Marie Thomas. Knock Me a Kiss has set design by Anthony Davidson, costume design by Ali Turns, lighting design by Shirley Prendergast, and sound design by Bill Toles.
Knock Me a Kiss is a fictional account inspired by the actual events surrounding the 1928 marriage of W.E.B. Du Bois’ daughter Yolande to one of Harlem’s great poets, Countee Cullen. The marriage marked the height of the Harlem Renaissance and was viewed as the perfect union of Negro talent and beauty. It united the daughter of America’s foremost Black intellectual, cofounder of the NAACP and publisher of Crisis Magazine, with a young poet whose work was considered to be one of the flagships for the New Negro movement. The marriage is a triumph of pomp and pageantry but fails to be a union of man and woman.
Performances are Wednesday through Friday evenings at 7:30 PM, Saturday at 3 PM and 8 PM, and Sunday at 3 PM. No performance Thanksgiving, November 25th; special added performance Tuesday, November 30th at 7:30 PM.
Tickets are $25 and can be ordered by phone at 212/352-3101. For more information, please visit http://www.newfederaltheatre.org or call NFT at 212-353-1176.
Performances for Knock Me a Kiss are at Henry Street Settlement’s Abrons Arts Center/RecitAl Hall, 466 Grand Street (between Pitt & Willett Streets). By subway: “F” train to Delancey Street; “M” and “J” train to Essex Street; or by “M14A” bus to Pitt Street.
André De Shields recently dazzled in The John W. Engeman’s production of DAMN YANKEES, this summer in Northport. In a career that has spanned four decades, De Shields is best known for his electrifying performances in the original Broadway productions of The Wiz in 1975 (title role), Ain’t Misbehavin’ in 1978 (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! in 1997 (Tony nomination) and The Full Monty in 2000, for which he received Tony, Drama Desk and Astaire Award nominations, in addition to both the Outer Critics Circle and Drama League Awards. His other Broadway credits include an autobiographical revue, Haarlem Nocturne, and the world premier of two new American plays: Mark Medoff’s Prymate (Drama Desk nomination) and Michael Jacob’s Impressionism, with Jeremy Irons and Joan Allen. He is the recipient of the 2009 National Black Theatre Festival’s Living Legend Award, the 2007 Village Voice OBIE Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance and the 2009 AUDELCO Award for Outstanding Performance in a Musical/Male. He won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Achievement for his performance in the 1982 NBC broadcast of Ain’t Misbehavin’. New York theatre audiences have seen De Shields in productions as varied as Cato at The Flea, Neil Simon’s The Good Doctor at the Melting Pot Theatre, Let Me Sing at The George Street Playhouse, Lonnie Carter’s The Gulliver Trilogy at La MaMa e.t.c. and his solo work-in-progress Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory: From Douglass to Deliverance at The Abingdon Theatre about abolitionist Frederick Douglass. At the Classical Theatre of Harlem, he has been seen as Makak in Derek Walcott’s Dream On Monkey Mountain, in the title roles of Archbishop Supreme Tartuffe, CALIGULA and King Lear, directed by Alfred Preisser. Regional audiences have witnessed him as Henry Drummond in Inherit The Wind, Willy Loman in Death Of A Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The Man Who Came To Dinner, Scott Joplin in Tin Pan Alley Rag, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Jacob Strand in Ibsen’s Ghosts (starring Jane Alexander), and the Stage Manager in Thornton Wilder’s Our Town.
Playwright Charles Smith is a member of the Playwrights Ensemble at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago, alumni playwright of the Tony Award-winning New Dramatists in New York, and Head of the Professional Playwriting Program at Ohio University. His plays have been produced Off-Broadway and around the country by theaters such as Victory Gardens, The Acting Company, Indiana Repertory Theatre, People’s Light & Theatre Company, Goodman Theatre, Penumbra, Ujima Theatre Company, St. Louis Black Rep, New Federal Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, and Berkeley Repertory Theater. His work has also been produced for the HBO New Writers Project, the International Children’s Theater Festival in Seattle, and the North Carolina Black Arts Festival. His play Pudd’nhead Wilson enjoyed a 22 city national tour and his plays Takunda and City of Gold enjoyed tours of the west coast. His other plays include Free Man of Color, which recently premiered in Australia after being awarded a Joseph Jefferson Award and John W. Schmid Award, both for Outstanding New Work. He is also author of two Emmy Award-winning teleplays, “Fast Break to Glory” and “Pequito.” A graduate of the Iowa Playwrights Workshop and recipient of the 2008 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award, Smith has received commissions from Victory Gardens, The Goodman, Seattle Rep, Indiana Rep, The Acting Company, and Ohio University. His most recent work, The Gospel According to James, was a commissioned by Indiana Rep and is the result of a Joyce Award. The Gospel According to James received its World Premiere production at Indiana Rep and was subsequently be produced by Victory Gardens in Chicago.
Director Chuck Smith has had 25 years of experience in African-American theater. He is resident director of the Goodman Theatre, where he has directed Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, A Christmas Carol, and Vivisections from the Blown Mind. Smith is a founding member of the Chicago Theatre Company, where he was artistic director for four seasons, staging plays including Sizwe Banzi is Dead, Fathers and Other Strangers, Suspenders, the Jeff-winning musical Po’, and The Meeting. He has also directed at Fleetwood-Jourdain, The New Regal, Kuumba, Pegasus Players, New Federal Theater, ETA Creative Arts, Columbia College, and Chicago Black Ensemble Theater. He is also artistic director of the Chicago Historical Society’s Voices in History program and an artist-in-residence at Columbia College Chicago, where he facilitates the Theodore Ward playwriting contest.
Woodie King Jr. is the Founder and Producing Director of New Federal Theatre. Woodie King Jr.’s New Federal Theatre has presented over 200 productions in its 40-year history. Mr. King has produced and directed on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in Regional Theatres, and in universities across the United States. He co-produced For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf (first produced by NFT and Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre), What the Wine Sellers Buy, Reggae and The Taking of Miss Janie (Drama Critics Circle Award). His directional credits are extensive and include work in film as well as theater.
As a photographer and videographer, Lia collaborates with artists, organizations and companies in establishing their documentary photo archive and social media presence. She has been documenting her colleagues and contemporaries in the arts, fashion and journalism since making her stage debut as Liat in the National Tour of South Pacific, with Robert Goulet and Barbara Eden.
This year, selections of Lia’s archive of Asian Pacific Americans in the arts, fashion, journalism, politics and space will become part of newly created LIA CHANG THEATER PHOTOGRAPHY PORTFOLIO in the ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN PERFORMING ARTS COLLECTION housed in the Library of Congress Asian Division’s Asian American Pacific Islander Collection.
Lia Chang
