Lisa Ramirez Thrills with a Hundred Years of Disasters by Barry David Horwitz April is the cruellest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. –T.S. Eliot, “The Waste Land” (1922) In 1922, T.S. Eliot, an American living in exile in…
Lydia R. Diamond Refocuses US on Poverty & Racism by Patricia L. Morin & Barry David Horwitz In Lydia R. Diamond’s audio-drama of Toni Morrison’s first novel, The Bluest Eye (1970), disembodied voices tell the tragic story of an outcast little Black girl. That girl, rejected and despised, lives in backwoods Lorain, Ohio, Morrison’s…
Alice Childress Spotlights African American Stereotypes by Barry David Horwitz In Alice Childress’s 1957 play, “Trouble in Mind,” two titanic figures confront each other at a rehearsal of an “anti-lynching” script. The fictional script, titled “Chaos in Belleville,” takes place on a southern plantation during slavery, and it parades offensive racial stereotypes. Playing seasoned…
Lasiter & Barnaba Light the Ring of Fire by Robert M. Gardner The first words of Johnny Cash’s last recorded song, “I hurt myself today,” still haunt me. Like other songs in “My Name is … Johnny Cash,” it reveals new truths about the storied career of The Man in Black. The bio-musical demonstrates…