When Douglas Blackmon was 6 years old, living with his parents in Leland, Mississippi, he started school. It was the fall of 1970, and he had no idea at the time he was about to make history as part of the first class in an area experiencing desegregation. For the first time, Black and White…
As soon as he heard the unsettling news last spring that Atlanta Lyric Theatre closed, Alex Scollon knew it was time for action. As the managing director of Actor’s Express, he has seen how difficult it is for arts organizations to stay afloat. Knowing he needed to move quickly, he drafted a letter painting a…
Staging an annual play festival brings with it all sorts of artistic and financial challenges, but, for Peter Hardy, artistic director of Essential Theatre, this season brought an unexpected one. For the last eight years, the company has been performing at the West End Performing Arts Center, and the staff loved being there. Yet the…
When he was in his early 20s, actor and writer Robert Galinsky remembers constantly walking past a group of homeless guys who used to hang out on the steps of the Yale University Art Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut – frequently screaming and yelling at each other. At first, he didn’t pay much attention, but,…
The last six months of D. Smith’s life are a time she could never have envisioned. At the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, she premiered her debut film Kokomo City — a look at four transgender sex workers in New York and Atlanta — to rapturous reviews, the NEXT Audience and Innovator awards from…
A circa 1997 drama about a girls’ high school basketball team from Plainnole, Arkansas whose members are hoping to go pro after graduation, Flex looks at the stress young Black women deal with on and off the court. Told in the structure of a four-quarter basketball game, the play had its world premiere at Theatrical Outfit in…
As a member of the merged Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists for more than 15 years, Atlanta-based Maya Dunbar realized a while ago that she wanted to see some change in an organization that means so much to her. After thinking it through, she realized that she could…
As Jamil Jude, the artistic director of True Colors Theatre Company, and the cast and crew of his new version of The Wiz ease on down the road to opening night, it’s clear that this is more than just a stand-alone production. It’s also very much a statement that the playhouse is back post-pandemic, ready…
Atlanta filmmaker Cara Consilvio chronicles Brent Nicholson Earle’s 1986 “The American Run for the End of AIDS” in the new documentary called For the Love of Friends, which begins airing on American Public Television June 1. It’s her feature film directing debut. In a just world, Earle would be acknowledged more for the work he…
It was a moment Atlanta-based Topher Payne will never forget: In 2016, he was able to list himself as a full-time writer on his income tax return — one of the greatest achievements of his life, especially after working at his craft for so long. In the last year, however, it has become increasingly difficult…
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