theblackbottom

Willa Ward, who lent her pure, note-bending voice to the Ward Singers, one of the most famous and influential groups of what is considered the golden age of gospel singing, died in Philadelphia on Aug. 12. She was 91.READ MORE

Carl Davis, a record producer and music impresario who helped shape the sound of Chicago soul [...]

Detroit Free Press

By Brian McCollum
Detroit Free Press Pop Music Critic
Motown is headed to Broadway.
Capping several years of hopes and a steady stream of rumors, Berry Gordy Jr. announced today that his autobiographical “Motown: The Musical” will debut in spring 2013 at a Nederlander theater in New York.

The show — with industry heavyweights Kevin McCollum [...]

David Alan Grier was nominated for a Tony Award, Broadway’s highest award for actors in a drama or musical. Grier is a Detroit native, a graduate of Cass Tech High School, as well as the University of Michigan. Grier has had an illustrious career on stage, film, and in television.
We recommend highly that readers [...]

The American Theatre Critics Association has named Darren M. Canady the winner of the 2012 M. Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award, in recognition of his play “Brothers of the Dust.” The award will be presented to him at the association’s conference in June in Chicago.
The Osborn Award is meant to recognize the work of an [...]

Once You Learn How To Read, You Will Be Forever Free!~Frederick Douglass

REVIEW Ms. Russell is an award winning producer, writer and actress. In the past five years, Ms. Russell has written and staged one musical, two biographical plays, one radio mystery play and a written two documentaries.
Kim Russell’s original one-woman show [...]

Reporting from New York — Lydia R. Diamond, whose plays often work the intersection of race and class, remembers once posing a hypothetical scenario she knew would prompt heated debate.
The 42-year-old African American playwright and teacher contended that if the Obamas had a son and that son became the fiancé of [...]

Cherryl Floyd-Miller is a poet/playwright/fiber artist working and living in her native North Carolina. She is a manager at a healthcare firm and teaches writing courses in her community. Her work has appeared in Poetry, Crab Orchard Review, Copper Nickel, Terminus, Poetry Southeast, North Carolina Literary Review, Warpland, Essence magazine and [...]

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: Unfortunately, this big-picture drama (and Ms. Hall’s big picture is bigger than you imagine) is short on revelatory close-ups. And despite an engagingly low-key performance by Mr. Jackson, it never provides the organic details and insights that would make Martin Luther King live anew.
Mark Kennedy, [...]

Hailing all the way from Memphis, Tennessee, Katori Hall has taken the world of Playwriting by storm. Her plays include The Mountaintop, which was produced to great acclaim at London’s Theatre 503 and received a transfer to the Trafalgar Studios in London’s West End, earning her an Olivier Award for Best New Play. The [...]

Kara Lee Cothron’s plays have been produced and developed by numerous theaters, including the Vineyard Theatre, Center Stage (Baltimore), ACT Seattle/Hansberry Project, Manhattan Theatre Source, Penumbra Theatre, Horizon Theatre (Atlanta), African Continuum Theatre (D.C.), and Voice & Vision, among others. In 2009, she was a staff writer for the critically-acclaimed NBC drama, “Kings.” She [...]