Actors are Athletes

It took roughly 8 hours to strike!! Can you say actors are athletes. Many members of the cast as well as the MPAACT board family came out to help and boy was it needed. I had never striked before and I was ill prepared for the physical feat of transporting large boards of wood back and forth to truck to lobby to street to storage. It was fun though, we got to let loose our aggravation on the wood in a healthy form of stomping and beating with hammers and drills. I never deconstructed a home ever in my life. We manage to save most of the set's wood for future use. What is worth mentioning is the white door that is right next to the sink is the company's first real door!! It is literally twenty years old, the same age as I am. It has been used in every MPAACT production since conception. The doors say alot about the company, its resilience and strength to still be around not only as a small theater company in Chicago but as one that is dedicated to providing raw theatrical performances for African American audiences. If noone writes your story who will? It has been one great myriad of experiences after another working for MPAACT. Besides gaining understanding of what it means to be FUBU theater, which is an acronym for For Us By Us. Many African American plays may have to change their art to appeal to a white audiences. Through that process of crossing over the authenticity of the work loses it value and it no longer becomes African American Art for African Americans by Africans but African Americans arts for white audiences. MPAACT prides itself in maintaining its authenticity and originality because it only produce original work as well as work written about the black experience presented for a black audience. Many people don't understand how rare it is for African American work to be produced for African American audiences. When one thinks of African American plays that instantly think of "For Colored Girls" by Ntozake Shange and August Wilson Fences. These few plays were fubu plays. Speaking of Fences, to complete my internship I will be playing Cory the son of Troy in fences. I am so excited this will be my first time performing in Chicago and my first time to act in a theater internship which is unheard of in a theater internship. http://www.oakton.edu/conted/audience_nav/emeritus/index.php