Millennial Notes Marc Anthony Thompson Transforms Minstrel Satire to Black Joy by Korinne Nickings The lights go down … and darkness fills the room as I listen to the sounds of screams, and sloshing of ocean waves and I am instantly transported to the transatlantic voyage of Africans in chains. Stage lights rise and…
Millennial Notes Erika Dickerson-Despenza Delivers a Force of Nature by Beau McGlasson It can be a challenge to find joy and beauty in the face of cruelty, racism, and government failings. Sometimes it can even feel impossible. Erika Dickerson-Despenza’s difficult and heart-rending “shadow/land” responds to real oppression and racism with visible Black joy. She…
Brian Quijada’s Musical Unravels a Latin Life by Patricia L. Morin In class at a young age, Satya Chávez attempts to understand the defiance of Rosa Parks, a Black woman, when she sat down in the white people’s section on a segregated bus. Chávez, as a Brown girl, innocently asks the teacher: “Where did…
Reflections Lynn Nottage Exposes How Corporate Profits Trump People by Tom van Nuenen “Sweat,” the Pulitzer-awarded play by Lynn Nottage, is a powerful examination of the capitalist strategy of divide-and-conquer. Race is pitted against race, and generation against generation in America’s Rust Belt. On the drive to the spacious, modern Lesher Center for the…