Three different Northeast Ohio productions showcase Black joy on their stages this month. One fuses the Bard with barbeque, another won a Pulitzer and the third was created right here in Cleveland. Yet the creative minds behind these plays are all eager to celebrate Black life.
Jeanne Madison wrote “Showin’ Up Black” for Cleveland Public Theatre’s Test Flight in 2023. The workshop allowed her to refine the piece, which now opens Feb. 20. It takes place amid a Black Lives Matter protest and a debutante ball – both happening at the same time and place.
“It's not a Black History Month play, and it's also not a Black play,” she said. “So many of us are just frustrated with the visual imagery of Blacks on screen. So many of the shows are very depressing, and I tell people: ‘Showin’ Up Black’ has no prisons, no prostitutes, no pimps.”
What it does have is a family having conversations about equality amid the preparations for a cotillion.
“So, you've got generational conflicts, you've got class conflicts, you've got economic conflicts,” she said. “The issues that are talked about are universal.”
At Dobama Theatre in Cleveland Heights, Director Sheffia Randall-Nickerson feels similarly about “The Hot Wing King,” running through Feb. 16. She called the Pulitzer-winning script a “page turner.”
“It really was the characters and their love for each other, even though they had trials and tribulations,” she said. “How are they going to come together as a group of friends and lovers and get through it? I also truly, truly loved this story of queer Black love and family.”
The comedy involves Cordell and his boyfriend, Dwayne, preparing for a hot wing contest when a family member ominously shows up, uninvited. It strikes a personal chord for Randall-Nickerson, who is Black and queer.
“We're often looking at sort of Black struggle and Black trauma,” she said. “While we definitely want to honor that, one of the things I love about Dobama … is saying, ‘Hey, let's celebrate Black joy.’”
At Cleveland Play House, “Fat Ham” presents a delicious take on Shakespeare through February 23.
“Fat Ham” director Nathan Henry Lilly, who doubles as CPH’s director of engagement, said the play in not a Black story but an American story.
“Trying to find my place in the world, trying to figure out where I belong and trying to figure out what I want to do or what I want to be when I grow up,” he said. “We all go through that, right?”
