DC Black Theatre Festival

Review: ‘Never Thought I was Black Till I Came to America’ (DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival)

The joyful spirit of Kenyan actress and storyteller, Anna Mwalagho filled the black box theater at Anacostia Arts Center as she performed her one-woman Black woman’s rites of passage message play,...

Review: ‘The Negroes Are Congregating’ (DC Black Theatre & Film Festival)

Midway through this fast, furious, in-your-face poetic explosive about anti-black racism, one of the three cast members stops the action and says: “I’m sorry, I’m trying to keep up the pace with this...

Review: ‘The Heroes’ Tale’ (DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival)

This power plant of a play knocked me out two years ago during the Capital Fringe Festival and knocked me out all over again in the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival. The Heroes’ Tale debuted in 2011,...

Review: ‘Land of Promiscuity’ by Soul-Satisfying Productions at DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival

Family history, like any history, has a tendency to repeat itself. Filled with pathos, generational curses, and touches of humor, Land of Promiscuity, directed by LaRay McDaniel and written by...

Magic Time!: ‘The Boy from Troy’ (DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival)

One looks for hope where one can find it. And sometimes hope pops up on its own, unexpected. That kind of hope, not sought out, can catch in one’s throat, can even move one to tears. Such was what...

Review: ‘Baldwin’s N*gger’ (DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival)

With the recent release of I Am Not Your Negro and If Beale Street Could Talk, the eminent writer James Baldwin received significant cinematic attention. This has been followed in DC by two...

Opening weekend at the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival (photo feature)

The opening weekend of the DC Black Theatre & Arts Festival was a lively family reunion of art, food, music and drama. DCBTAF chair and dancing diplomat Nana Malaya served as ring leader and founder...

Review: ‘Wagner, Max! Wagner’ a Song Cycle at The Kennedy Center

Even those familiar with the work of Stew and Heidi Rodewald, the duo behind Obie and Tony-award winning musical Passing Strange, might find a description of their newest song cycle Wagner, Max!...

DC Black Theatre Festival: ‘Plot Twists…’

An outstanding assembly of DC’s African American LGBTQ artists converged to create Plot Twists…, a late addition to the DC Black Theatre Festival lineup. Conceived and produced by Monte J. Wolfe—and...

DC Black Theatre Festival: ‘Secrets of a Black Boy’

A theater troupe from Toronto brought this play to town for three performances only for the DC Black Theater Festival. Secrets of a Black Boy speaks with great honesty and artistry. It achieves on...

DC Black Theatre Festival: ‘Finally Quiet in My Head’

Madness has been dramatized in theater at least since the ancient Greeks. The mind come loose from its moorings, the persona altered, a terror deep in the self—whether in life or on stage, this...

‘Finally Quiet in My Head’ at DC Black Theatre Festival 2015 at Anacostia Arts Center on June 20-21st by Cristina A. Bejan

Two humans in St. Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital in SE Washington DC who deny that their existence is defined solely by the label ‘crazy.’ One Washingtonian family who grapples with what their dear...