JCTC’S TALK SERIES “BLACK SPACE” WITH ASHLEY NICOLE BAPTISTE CONTINUES WITH THE INSPIRING & ENGAGING PLAYWRIGHT OF CULLUD WATTAH, ERIKA DICKERSON-DESPENZA ON WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 8TH @4PM EST THROUGH ZOOM WEBINAR.

Baptiste, an actor, associate artistic director, activist, and a veteran youth theatre educator with the JCTC Youth Theatre and the Stories of Greenville initiative, was born in San Francisco. “I want to create an intentional safe space where Black artists from around the world can come together and have a human-to-human exchange about art, race and life,” she says. “This series is about expansion, and pushing past preconceived notions of Blackness.”Baptiste's next guest is Erika Dickerson-Despenza playwright of CULLUD WATTAH (Now playing through Dec.12 at The Public Theater)

ERIKA DICKERSON-DESPENZA she/her (Playwright) is a Blk, queer feminist poet-playwrightand cultural-memory worker from Chicago, Illinois. Awards: Susan Smith Blackburn Prize(2021), Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award (2020), Thom Thomas Award (2020), Lilly Award(2020), Barrie and Bernice Stavis Award (2020), Grist 50 Fixer (2020), Princess Grace Playwriting Award (2019). Select Residencies and Fellowships: Tow Playwright-in-Residence at The Public Theater (2019-2020), U.S. Water Alliance National Arts & Culture delegate (2019),New York Stage and Film Fellow-in-Residence (2019), New Harmony Project Writer in Residence (2019), Dramatists Guild Foundation Fellow (2018-2019), The Lark Van Lier New Voices Fellow (2018). Communities: Ars Nova Play Group (2019-2021), Youngblood Collective (EST). Commissions: Climate Change Theatre Action, The Public Theater, Studio Theatre & Williamstown Theatre Festival. Productions: cullud wattah (Victory Gardens Theater, 2022),[hieroglyph] (San Francisco Playhouse/Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, 2021). Currently, Dickerson-Despenza is developing a ten-play Katrina Cycle, including [hieroglyph] and shadow/land, focused on the effects of Hurricane Katrina and its state-sanctioned, man-made disaster rippling in and beyond New Orleans.

The conversation is taking place Wednesday, December 8th at 4pm EST on Zoom webinar, click on page for link

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JCTC’S TALK SERIES “BLACK SPACE” WITH ASHLEY NICOLE BAPTISTE CONTINUES WITH TORONTO BASED DIRECTOR, ANTI-RACISM EDUCATOR, PLAYWRIGHT AND ARTISTIC DIRECTOR OF CAHOOTS THEATRE, TANISHA TAITT, ON FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3RD @4PM EST

In addition to her role as Artistic Director of Cahoots Theatre, Tanisha is a Toronto-based director/actor/playwright, musical artist, theatre & anti-racism educator, and accidental essayist whose journey includes work with numerous performing arts organizations. Tanisha has been nominated as a director for the Pauline McGibbon Award for Unique Talents, is a recipient of the Canadian Music Publishers Association Award & Scholarship for distinction in songwriting, and was a 2021 finalist for the Gina Wilkinson Prize honouring female theatremakers who centre community in their leadership. She is the playwright of two published works, Admissions and Keeper. Tanisha is part-time faculty for two of Canada's most respected theatre programs: Sheridan College's Music Theatre Performance program, where she teaches Acting Through Song, and George Brown College's Theatre Arts Performance program, where she teaches Contemporary Scene Study. She is a two-time YWCA Woman of Distinction nominee for her commitment to artistic excellence and social justice.

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JCTC’S TALK SERIES ‘BLACK SPACE’ WITH ASHLEY NICOLE BAPTISTE CONTINUES WITH PROFESSOR AT NEW JERSEY CITY UNIVERSITY AND CREATOR OF DIGITAL HUMANITIES PROJECT, SINGING THE NATION, Dr. SONYA DONALDSON, NEXT ON NOVEMBER 18th @8:00pm EST

Baptiste, an actor and a veteran youth theatre educator with the JCTC Youth Theatre and the Stories of Greenville initiative, “I want to create an intentional virtual space where Black artists from around the world can come together and have a human-to-human exchange about art, race and life,” she says. “This series is about expansion, and pushing past preconceived notions of blackness.”

Baptiste's next guest is Dr. Sonya Donaldson. Sonya Donaldson is Associate Professor of English at New Jersey City University, where she teaches World Literature, African Diasporic Literatures, and Hip Hop. She is the creator of the digital humanities project, Singing the Nation, an archive of performances of James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing.” In addition to her digital humanities project, Donaldson is also completing a book manuscript, Irreconcilable Differences?: Memory, History, and the Echoes of Diaspora, which examines autobiographical narratives, music, and performances by Black writers and artists in Germany, the U.K., and the USA. She was a recipient of a Mellon Career Enhancement Junior Faculty Fellowship, a Virginia Humanities Fellowship, and was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Virginia’s Scholars Lab. Donaldson is also the former Technology Editor at Black Enterprise magazine, and completed stints at Inc. magazine, Ziff-Davis publications, and the L.A. Daily News. Her scholarly work has appeared in Callaloo, The Feminist Wire, African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, and Women, Gender, and Families of Color. She serves on the advisory board of the Black German Heritage and Research Association.

You can follow her at:

Twitter: @sunnygrrrl

Instagram: @sunnygrrl

DH Project: http://singingthenation.com

Digital Black Atlantic Essay: https://dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/the-digital-black-atlantic/section/b5c2c6f7-c1a2-4645-8cf7-9d5cc70aa019#ch02

The conversation is taking place Thursday, November 18th at 8:00pm EST; FB Live and Zoom webinar

Webinar Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82593617154?pwd=RWtTckZlbDhXZldvMVFqQVpLd2hLUT09

Meeting ID: 825 9361 7154 | Passcode: 409141

“As our city gentrifies while retaining its diversity, and indeed as the world is changing in fundamental ways, being right in the middle of these conversations is essential,” says JCTC’s artistic director, Olga Levina. “For us as a theatre company dedicated to sparking conversations that lead to deeper respect and understanding, we know we need to create a safe place to listen and learn and collaborate.”

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JCTC’S TALK SERIES “BLACK SPACE” WITH ASHLEY NICOLE BAPTISTE CONTINUES WITH INTERNATIONAL AWARD WINNING ACTOR, WRITER AND CREATOR OF SCHWARZ GEMACHT, ALEXANDER THOMAS, NEXT ON NOVEMBER 3rd @7:00pm EST

Baptiste, an actor and a veteran youth theatre educator with the JCTC Youth Theatre and the Stories of Greenville initiative, was born in San Francisco. “I want to create an intentional safe space where Black artists from around the world can come together and have a human-to-human exchange about art, race and life,” she says. “This series is about expansion, and pushing past preconceived notions of blackness.”

Baptiste's next guest is Alexander Thomas. Married to a spouse who works for the Foreign Service, American born Alexander, has lived and worked in London, Berlin and Toronto where he won a Dora Award for Outstanding Performance in the Canadian premiere of BETWEEN RIVERSIDE AND CRAZY at Coal Mine Theatre. He was also in the Canadian premiere and award-winning production of THE ROYALE at Soulpepper Theatre, as well as the world premiere of FOR BOTH RESTING AND BREEDING at Talk is Free Theatre which travelled to Australia for the Adelaide Fringe Festival, and has also worked in the Toronto Fringe and Summer Works Festivals.

His self-penned solo play, THROW PITCHFORK premiered off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop in 2002 and later that same year regionally at Kitchen Theatre Co. in Ithaca, NY. It returned for a revival production at Kitchen Theatre Co. in 2017. It closed the 2004 Thespis International Monodrama Festival in Kiel, Germany where it won Special Honors Award, and was most recently seen at the National Black Theatre in Harlem for the American Slavery Project (ASP) and at the Michael Chekhov Theatre Festival in Connecticut. A video performance of Throw Pitchfork is currently streaming on the ASP website: https://www.americanslaveryproject.org/throw-pitchfork

He frequently works at Kitchen Theatre Co. where he has been seen in productions as diverse as OPUS, BROKE-OLOGY, AFTER ASHLEY, SUNSET BABY, THE WHIPPING MAN and a reprisal of his role in their production of THE ROYALE which also transferred to Geva Theatre Center in Rochester.

Other international credits include ON THE WATERFRONT directed by Stephen Berkoff in London on the West End, The Edinburgh and Hong Kong Arts Festivals, and the role of Ross in the Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg`s inaugural production of THE GOAT or WHO IS SLYVIA? He is a contributing writer for the American Slavery Project’s UNHEARD VOICES. His play SCHWARZ GEMACHT or HOW KLAUS FOUND HIS BLACKNESS was produced in 2014 at the English Theatre of Berlin and brought back in 2015. His acting training includes the Stella Adler Studio and the Meisner Technique with Richard Pinter.

Alexander Thomas (actor)

Toronto: Between Riverside and Crazy (Coal Mine Theatre), The Royale (Soulpepper Theatre), For Both Resting and Breeding (Talk Is Free Theatre /Adelaide Fringe Festival), Hangman (Storefront Theatre), Letters to Annabelle (Toronto Fringe), The Nails, A Girl Lives Alone (Summer Works Festival) USA: Opus, After Ashley, Broke-Ology, The Whipping Man, Sunset Baby, The Royale (Kitchen Theatre Company, Ithaca, NY) UK & Europe: On The Waterfront (Theatre Royal Haymarket / Edinburgh Fringe /Hong Kong Arts Festival) The Goat or Who is Sylvia? (Actors Repertory Theatre Luxembourg) Off-Broadway: Throw Pitchfork* (New York Theatre Workshop)

*Written and Performed by Alexander

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The inaugural production of the Fall's Crossroads Festival Theatre is this world premiere live production that features members of the internationally acclaimed, a cappella sensation, Sweet Honey in the Rock®. Ricardo Khan has created this play with music in collaboration with the internationally famous singing group, as a spirited, poetic and music journey through our most recent times amid the people's uprisings against racial and social injustice in America, while facing the challenges of quarantine and COVID 19. Inspired by the poem, “The Hill We Climb” written by National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, “When Day Comes” celebrates our “re-emergence”, while seeking a way to the light and our way forward as a nation, together.

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JCTC’S TALK SERIES “BLACK SPACE” WITH ASHLEY NICOLE BAPTISTE CONTINUES WITH WRITER, EDUCATOR AND CREATOR OF THE BLACK JOY PROJECT, KLEAVER CRUZ, NEXT ON JUNE 23 @7:30pm EST

Baptiste, an actor and a veteran youth theatre educator with the JCTC Youth Theatre and the Stories of Greenville initiative, was born in San Francisco. “I want to create an intentional safe space where black artists from around the world can come together and have a human-to-human exchange about art, race and life,” she says. “This series is about expansion, and pushing past preconceived notions of blackness.”

Baptiste's next guest is KLEAVER CRUZ. Kleaver is from Uptown, NYC is a Black queer Dominican-American creative, writer and educator. Kleaver’s work has been featured in various publications in print and online. Cruz has been in community with and created work across the African Diaspora in Brazil, the US, The Netherlands as well as in South Africa and beyond. Cruz is the creator of The Black Joy Project, a digital and real-world affirmation that Black joy is resistance. Kleaver is also a member of We Are All Dominican--A U.S.-based grassroots collective that works in solidarity with movements led by Dominicans of Haitian descent fighting for inclusion and citizenship rights in the DominicanRepublic. kleavercruz.com & @theblackjoyproject

The conversation is taking place Wednesday, June 23 at 7:30pm EST; FB Live and Zoom webinar. Free to all.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82803483739?pwd=TFJGWWlqaUJBMXdaajh3V0RMKzVidz09

Meeting ID: 828 0348 3739 | Passcode: 197875

“As our city gentrifies while retaining its diversity, and indeed as the world is changing in fundamental ways, being right in the middle of these conversations is essential,” says JCTC’s artistic director, Olga Levina. “For us as a theatre company dedicated to sparking conversations that lead to deeper respect and understanding, we know we need to create a safe place to listen and learn and collaborate.”

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JCTC’S TALK SERIES “BLACK SPACE” WITH ASHLEY NICOLE BAPTISTE CONTINUES WITH RAPPER, POET AND JCTC RESIDENT ARTIST IBN SHARIF SHAKOOR IS NEXT ON MAY 16

TALK SERIES HIGHLIGHTING THE EXPERIENCES, CHALLENGES AND IDEAS OF BLACK ARTISTS FROM AROUND THE WORLD BEGAN MARCH 31

Baptiste’s next guest is the hip-hop recording artist, songwriter and poet Ibn Sharif Shakoor on Sunday May 16 at 2pm. Shakoor, who is a JCTC resident artist, talks about growing up amid drugs and violence on the mean streets of Jersey City, and his path into music and songwriting to process, cope with and overcome adversity.

Born in Hoboken in 1986, Shakoor grew up in Jersey City. He began writing raps at age 9 and always credits music and poetry as the means by which he has both survived and thrived. As a boy Shakoor witnessed his mother’s drug abuse, often experiencing late-night convocations on dangerous street corners filled with violence. He was introduced to the trumpet as a child and soon discovered that raps were an outlet for his identity as a creative person. Inspired first by Wu-Tang and Tupac albums, he released his first mix tape, “It’s Been War,” at age 18. Despite mixed feedback due to its conscience content, he continued to write, earning the respect of his rap peers. His latest projects display an intriguing versatility while maintaining his lyrical and soulful integrity. He is currently a resident artist of JCTC. Instagram: @ibnsharifshakoor

Baptiste, an actor and a veteran youth theatre educator with the JCTC Youth Theatre and the Stories of Greenville initiative, was born in San Francisco. “I want to create an intentional safe space where black artists from around the world can come together and have a human-to-human exchange about art, race and life,” she says. “This series is about expansion, and pushing past preconceived notions of blackness.”

“As our city gentrifies while retaining its diversity, and indeed as the world is changing in fundamental ways, being right in the middle of these conversations is essential,” says JCTC’s artistic director, Olga Levina. “For us as a theatre company dedicated to sparking conversations that lead to deeper respect and understanding, we know we need to create a safe place to listen and learn and collaborate.”

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Hi FB Family & Friends!

All of Hudson non-profits are having a fundraising event on May 13 2021. Please donate if you can to Jersey City Theater Center That's the theater I am working as associate artistic director, and have created the Black Space programming with. No donation is too small.

Support our local non-for-profits on May 13th 2021!!! Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) will host numerous pop-up performances, virtual tours, site visits and gatherings (both in-person and online) as part of the daylong fundraising event #Hudsongives, To donate and participate in the #HudsonGives donor platform, visit:

https://www.hudsongives.org/p2p/205974/ashley-nicole

@hudsoncountychamber

Thank you Hudson County Chamber of Commerce and @Maria Neives for the opportunity and your exceptional leadership! #hudsoncounty #artsandculture NJ.co

https://fb.me/e/Z0IOHRK6

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The Jersey City Theater Center (JCTC) presents the fourth installment of the new talk series, “Black Space,” an ongoing series of intimate and candid conversations exploring the experiences of black artists in the world today, on Wednesday May 5 at 7:30pm EST. Series host Ashley Nicole Baptiste, JCTC’s associate artistic director, shines the spotlight on the beloved jazz singer and educator “Ms. Mary” Aiken, a Jersey City living legend, in a candid conversation about growing up in Jersey City, her career as a local entertainer and also her commitment to serving as a role model for young people.

A graduate of Ferris High School, Ms. Mary is not only a well-known longtime fixture on the stage of Moore’s Lounge (where she performs regularly), but she is also a devoted teacher and role model having worked with local youth for over 50 years in countless schools, day cares, libraries, and churches. She was the style columnist for the Jersey City magazine From Dusk Til Dawn, she’s taught modeling, puppetry, storytelling, sign language, acting and singing to students of every age. A keen-eyed witness to both the changes, durability and extraordinary diversity of Jersey City, Ms. Mary is a self-described “mom to all,” whose motto is “you treat people how you want to be treated, and they will treat you well!”

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In this episode you will see an in depth conversation with Antu Yacob.

Antu Yacob was born in Dire Dawa, Ethiopia and raised in California and Minnesota. She is an actor, filmmaker, producer and playwright. Her work is focused on women of the African Diaspora. Her film Love in Submission just completed its cinema tour through Full Spectrum Features’ collection: Our Right to Gaze: Black Film Identities. In 2020, the film screened in various festivals including New York African Film Festival, Women of the Lens (UK) and received an Honorable Mention in the Black Muslim Girl Fly Festival. The film follows two Muslim women from different backgrounds, who meet for the first time when their worlds collide through a mutual third party. Antu also served as a producer for Adrian Luke Sinclair’s film Conjure, which won the Vanguard Award in the 2017 Hip Hop Film Festival. Her tv/film acting credits include Night Comes On, Daredevil, Gypsy, Law & Order: SVU, Brooklyn Park, Adieu Lacan, Signs of Aging, Conjure and Love in Submission. Her solo show In The Gray was featured in United Solo Theatre Festival and the Symposium on African Global Migration. Her plays have premiered at Kampala International Theatre Festival (Uganda), Project Y Theatre, Theatre167 and Mile Square Theatre. Her theater acting credits include work with The Fire This Time Festival, American Slavery Project, Primary Stages, Crossroads Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Luna Stage, Cincinnati Playhouse, Philadelphia Theatre Co, Mixed Blood Theatre, Pangea World Theatre and Pillsbury House Theatre. As Associate Producer with Project Y Theatre, she conceived All Hands on Deck, a reading series of new plays by 4 prolific Black female writers, which streamed in July 2020. She received her MFA in Acting from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. She teaches at Baruch College and Rutgers University. Follow her on IG @antuyacob and Twitter @AntuAbdi for updates.

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