I just got back in town from the National Black Theatre Festival where I saw five shows in three days. (There were more than 40 to choose from.) Thousands of people flocked to Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the 30th annual event, which features theater made about black people, with black people, for black people. I was there with the American…
Nowadays celebrating freedom can seem trite since so many people are taking other people's away. On this 4th of July in America, there are children in cages at the southern border, a war with Iran is brewing, our veterans are homeless, and families dread Thanksgiving because of who they voted for. Still, our default setting as humans is freedom and…
I am turning 30 this year and I knew that I wanted to take a solo trip to a place I'd never been to mark the occasion. This led me to the Pacific Northwest, a region of the country I hadn't explored much. My birthday is not until November, but I decided to take the trip in the spring and…
I recently started listening to Glory Edim's anthology Well-Read Black Girl on Audible. The book derives its title from Edim's book club, which spawned into an organization with national chapters and a festival that takes place in Brooklyn annually. For the book, she asked renowned, black women authors in all genres of literature to write essays based on the question:…
There is a difference between what we know and what we accept and this year I learned what life looks like when I accept what I know. Over the past few years, I have been making an effort to live whole-heartedly. Three years ago, I wrote a daily affirmation. Two years ago, I started keeping a journal. Last year, I…
I remember a few years ago, one of my good actor friends in NYC called me raving about a new musical he saw called Hamilton at The Public Theater. He poured over it using words like "amazing," "genius" and "Broadway bound." Sure enough, he called it and less than a year later it was the hottest ticket on the Great…