The year 2020 was a @$%*& of a year, but we all still showed up and did the work. I can truly say that the last year has changed my approach to my work and made me want to bring more depth to my work. Here are my top reads and interviews from last year.

Article: The Southern Women Who Shaped Aunjanue Ellis

Publication: Bitter Southerner

Quote: “I want to make bad people mad, and I feel like the work I have done thus far has done that. If we don’t remain vigilant, then white America will believe that we already had a national reckoning with race and we can move on. But, we have to remember that anti-Black racism is cyclical and that there will be another George Floyd or Breonna Taylor.”

Article: “Atlanta theaters, I need your imagination”: An essay from arts journalist Kelundra Smith

Publication: ArtsATL

Quote: “What this all boils down to on our stages, and in our world, is a lack of imagination. Humans can only manifest what they can imagine, so if people of color don’t live a full existence in your imagination, they won’t be in your life. When you close your eyes and envision utopia, who do you see?”

Article: Six Angels Singing the ‘Blues’

Publication: New York Times

Quote: “How many times in the American theater have we watched men characters act in their own self-interest? All the time. We don’t sit around the table calling them villains. These characters are celebrated. Men desire to play these characters. [I asked my castmates] why is it that a woman, who in 1930 has agency over her own body and does not have any loyalty to the church, which is such a big thing in black stories, described as evil?”

Article: ‘More Than a Trend’: Black-Owned Restaurants Still Need Your Support

Publication: Food & Wine Magazine

Quote: “The shift away from in-person dining presented a unique set of economic and logistical challenges for restaurants whose concepts revolve around intimate experiences and atmosphere—a problem that’s especially pronounced in the South, where comfort food is communal.”

Article: Racism claims shutter Serenbe Playhouse; Atlanta theater wonders what comes next

Publication: ArtsATL

Quote: “Another question remains. If the theater had remained financially solvent, would the Institute have shuttered operations over racism? Though many in the Atlanta theater community have described the culture there as an open secret, what isn’t a secret is that the theater generated a lot of revenue for the Serenbe community by attracting visitors.”

Article: Best of Atlanta: Arts & Culture 

Publication: Atlanta Magazine

Quote: “For many years, Starlight Drive-In Theatre has been a relic of the past, but what’s old is new again. With the Covid-19 pandemic shutting down movie theaters across the country, many people returned to Starlight in order to experience the silver screen.”