This coming Sunday, 18 April at 9pm, Sky Arts’ Freeview Channel screens the Almeida’s hit from earlier this year, HYMN. Starring Adrian Lester (Red Velvet, Hustle) and Danny Sapani (Killing Eve, Les Blancs), HYMN is written by Lolita Chakrabarti (Red Velvet, Life of Pi) and directed by Blanche McIntyre (The Writer).
“Man, sometimes it takes a long time to sound like yourself” Miles Davis
Two men meet at a funeral. Benny is a loner anchored by his wife and children. Gil longs to fulfil his potential. They form a deep bond but as cracks appear in their fragile lives they start to realise that true courage comes in different forms.
Featuring music from Gil and Benny’s lives, Lolita Chakrabarti’s searching, soulful new play asks what it takes to be a good father, brother or son.
SIBMAS are asking everyone who cares about theatre and performance to send a letter to Tristram Hunt, the Director of the V&A, to demand wider consultation before any of the proposed savage changes are made to the status of their world-renowned Theatre and Performance collection.
On 13th April, SIBMAS said:
Following an update from Dr. Tristram Hunt regarding the reorganisation of the departmental structure in the museum it is now proposed that Theatre & Performance will be in a department with Fashion & Furniture. While this is a step in the right direction with Theatre & Performance being at least recognised as an entity we have concerns about this possible new structure, not least about the loss of specialist jobs and knowledge resulting from it. To try and effect further change we ask you who are reading this to write again, to support the call for a consultation with collaborators and stakeholders external to the museum about the future of the Theatre & Performance department.
SIBMAS has created two draft letters one for Donors and One for Supporters. Please use this information to craft your own letter that best suits your own experience/position in regards to the collection.
You can quickly download one or both of the letter templates (which make it very easy to complete in just a few minutes) at the SIBMAS website here
If you can CC a copy of your letter to president@sibmas.org , and by so doing, you are agreeing to give SIBMAS permission to publish your letter / name. SIBMAS would like to publish a selection of emails on their website.
Please send your open letter to Tristram Hunt, Director, V&A Museum, t.hunt@vam.ac.uk
THANK YOU!
Who are SIBMAS?
Since 1954, SIBMAS has been the international network of cultural heritage in the performing arts. Spread across 35 countries around the world, they gather individuals and institutions documenting circus, dance, film, opera, theatre and puppetry.
What does SIBMAS do?
They promote research in the performing arts, facilitate networking among their members and share resources about their specific collections and the performing arts in general:
Conferences: SIBMAS organises biennial conferences focusing on challenges and recent developments of current practical interest for our members Networking: SIBMAS encourages genuine collaboration and invests in spreading best practice between its members Newsletter: a quarterly newsletter, providing up-to-date news and information about the activities of SIBMAS and our members International Directory of Performing Arts: a database with detailed information about performing arts collections, searchable by organization name and/or category of member institution ranging from national libraries to puppet museums Proceedings: SIBMAS provides print editions of the conference papers of our conferences
Next Tuesday 20th April at 2pm Eastern Time, 6 pm UK time, the ever-eloquent and much-respected writer Sir David Hare will be in conversation, in an event organised and hosted by the National Arts Club of America.
Described by The Washington Post as “the premiere political dramatist writing in English”, he has written over 30 stage plays & 30 screenplays for film & TV.
His plays include Plenty, Pravda (with Howard Brenton), The Secret Rapture, Racing Demon, Skylight, Amy’s View, The Blue Room, Via Dolorosa, Stuff Happens, The Absence of War, The Judas Kiss, The Red Barn and The Moderate Soprano. For cinema, he has written The Hours, The Reader, Damage, Denial, Wetherby, and The White Crow, among others, while his television films include Licking Hitler, The Worricker Trilogy, Collateral, and Roadkill.
In a millennial poll of the greatest plays of the 20th century, five of the top 100 were Hare’s.
Like Judi Dench, Richard Eyre, and Ian McKellen, three of our recent guests on NAC @ Home, Sir David is a recipient of the Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts. It was in the Broadway production of Amy’s View, written by Sir David and directed by Sir Richard, that Dame Judi won the 1999 Tony Award for her stellar role as Esme. And filmgoers will recall a brilliant performance by Sir Ian (in a powerful scene with Meryl Streep) in the cinematic version of Sir David’s Plenty.
The NAC invites you to join them for a wide-ranging dialogue, hosted by NAC Member John F. Andrews, president and founder of the Shakespeare Guild.
The event is planned to last one hour and tickets can be obtained through this link here (subject to availability). Although tickets are free, a donation is requested to go towards the NAC’s support of young artists.
The NAC says: “Please help us support artists. By making a donation with your registration, you contribute directly to the NAC Artist Fellows program, helping to further the careers of up-and-coming artists.”
Founded in 1898, the mission of The National Arts Club is to stimulate, foster, and promote public interest in the arts and to educate the American people in the fine arts.
This program will be hosted via Zoom. Registrants will receive additional details after registration.
The site mirthy.co.uk is offering a free online talk about London theatres on Thursday, 22nd April at 4.00pm UK time. Presented by Andrew Warde.
The site’s description of the event reads as follows:
Explore the evolution of the theatre in London with a talk illustrating histories of playhouses and stories about actors who have graced them. We discover the West End theatres and go backstage to see how the wonderful shows are made. As Alfred Hitchcock said, “Drama is Life with the dull bits cut out.” Presented by Andrew Warde. Talk length – 42 minutes.
Whilst I know nothing of the presenter or the talk’s contents, anyone sorely missing our wonderful West End theatres might find this a comforting 42 minutes to enjoy, until we can see them again in person.
You will need to register for the talk to receive a joining link in an email. The website says that places are limited, so if you do want to join, it might be best to book early. You can register here
Winning writer Erika Dickerson-Despenza (photo from SSB Prize website)
The 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize has been awarded to U.S. playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza for her play about the Flint, Michigan water crisis, CULLAD WATTAH.
In a rare move which shows the strength of this year’s field of writers, Kimber Lee’s THE WATER PALACE and Ife Olujobi’s JORDANS each were awarded a $10,000 Special Commendation. Each finalist receives $5,000.
Awarded annually since 1977, The Susan Smith Blackburn Prize is the largest and oldest international prize honouring Women+ playwrights. On April 7, a livestream of the award ceremony honoured Dickerson-Despenza and the other nine finalists. Award-winning star of stage and screen, and one of this year’s Blackburn Prize Judges, Paapa Essiedu, announced the winning play, which comes with an award of $25,000 and a signed and numbered print by artist Willem de Kooning.
The Willem de Kooning print which is a part of the annual prize
The highly-respected women+-only playwriting prize’s 2021 shortlist was complied from over 160 international submissions.
The shortlist comprised (in alphabetical author order)
Glace Chase (Aus/US) – TRIPLE X
Erika Dickerson-Despenza (US) – CULLUD WATTAH
Miranda Rose Hall (US) – A PLAY FOR THE LIVING IN THE TIME OF EXTINCTION
Dawn King (UK) – THE TRIALS
Kimber Lee (US) – THE WATER PALACE
Janice Okoh (UK) – THE GIFT
Ife Olujobi (US) – JORDANS
Frances Poet (UK) – MAGGIE MAY
Jiehae Park (US) – THE AVES
Beth Steel (UK) – THE HOUSE OF SHADES
Having not seen the winning play yet , I must say that I was very impressed the brilliant Janice Okoh play THE GIFT which describes itself as “an outrageous play about imperialism, cross-racial adoption, cultural appropriation…and tea” Okoh’s play captures painfully and eloquently the past and present scars of British colonial racism. You can read my four-star review of the play here .
The show’s UK tour was sadly cut short due to the Covid shutdown, but it must return to ensure a wider audience has the chance to experience this unforgettable and important play.
Previous Susan Smith Blackburn Prize winners include Jackie Sibblies Drury for FAIRVIEW in 2019, which went on to win the Pulitzer Prize (see my review of the Young Vic production here), and Lucy Prebble’s A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON won the Award in 2020.
The judges were director Natalie Abrahami, director Lileana Blain-Cruz, designer Bunny Christie, actor Paapa Essiedu, actor Jason Butler Harner and director Seema Sueko.
To learn more about the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, visit their website by clicking here
Congratulations to all the shortlisted writers, commended writers and the winner.
For those who may like to know more about the play and its author, these following excepts are from the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize website
ERIKA DICKERSON-DESPENZA is a Blk, queer feminist poet-playwright and cultural-memory worker from Chicago, Illinois. She is a 2020 Grist 50 Fixer and was a National Arts & Culture Delegate for the U.S. Water Alliance’s One Water Summit 2019. Awards: Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award (2020), Thom Thomas Award (2020), Lilly Award (2020), Barrie and Bernice Stavis Award (2020), Steinberg Playwright Award (2020), Princess Grace Playwriting Award (2019, for cullud wattah). Residencies & Fellowships: Tow Playwright-in-Residence at The Public Theater (2019-2020), New York Stage and Film Fellow-in-Residence (2019), New Harmony Project Writer-in Residence (2019), Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow (2018-2019), The Lark Van Lier New Voices Fellow (2018). Communities: BYP100 Squad Member, Ars Nova Play Group (2019-2021), Youngblood Collective (EST). Commissions: The Public Theater, Studio Theatre & Williamstown Theatre Festival. Productions: cullud wattah (2019 Kilroys List) originally slated at The Public Theater, 2020 and Victory Gardens Theater, 2021. Currently, Erika is developing a 10-play Katrina Cycle, including shadow/land and [hieroglyph] (San Francisco Playhouse, 2021; 2019 Kilroys List), focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina and its state-sanctioned, man-made disaster rippling in & beyond New Orleans.
ABOUT CULLUD WATTAH
Dickerson-Despenza’s self-described “Afro-surrealist” play was set for a 2020 premiere at The Public Theater, when the pandemic shut down theatres around the world. The play embraces three generations of Black women living through the water crisis in Flint, Michigan.
“I wrote cullud wattah to explore the politics of disgust, shame and refusal by highlighting the rupture of government intervention at the intersection of capitalism and environmental racism…I wrote this play specifically for black women on the margins of the margins. Poor and working class black women, single mothers, elders and widows, black women in recovery, and queer black girls.”
– Erika Dickerson-Despenza
Full of tenderness and humor, the play paints a searing portrait of a family of Black women as they navigate their way through horrific catastrophe. As described by the Public Theater, “cullud wattah blends form and bends time, diving deep into the poisonous choices of the outside world, the contamination within, and how we make the best choices for our families’ future when there are no real, present options.”
cullud wattah was developed during the Lark Play Development Center’s 2018 Van Lier New Voices Fellowship tenure (John Clinton Eisner, Artistic Director) and received its first staged reading in October 2018 at Jackalope Theatre in Chicago (Gus Menary, Artistic Director; Nora Leahy, Managing Director). cullud wattah received a Public Studio workshop production March 7 – 10, 2019 at The Public Theater, where it was scheduled to have its world premiere in July 2020 (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Patrick Willingham, Executive Director) but is indefinitely postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
