CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Karamu House will return to the stage for in-person live performances this fall. The oldest Black producing theatre in the nation will launch its 2021-22 season with “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” on October 8. The August Wilson play about a trailblazing blues singer -- a 2020 film version starring Viola Davis and the late Chadwick Boseman earned five Oscar nominations -- will run through Oct. 31.
“For the last 18 months, Karamu House has been thankful to bring its virtual performances to audiences across the country,” said Karamu House President and CEO Tony F. Sias in a press release. “But nothing can ever compare to the thrill and excitement of live theatre. All of us, from the staff to the actors on stage to the technical theatre professionals behind-the-curtain, cannot wait to welcome back audiences into our theatre again this fall.”
The lineup includes three more shows: Langston Hughes’ “Black Nativity” (Dec. 3-23), Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop” (Feb. 11-Mar. 6) and Keith Hamilton Cobb’s “American Moor” (May 6-29). Hughes, of course, is Karamu’s most famous alumnus.
Performances, nearly 70 in total, will take place at the Cleveland Foundation Jelliffe Theatre, located at 2355 E. 89th Street, with the appropriate health and safety protocols in place, the theater said. Season ticket packages, priced between $92-$130, are available now at karamuhouse.org.
Here’s a detailed look at the 2021-22 season schedule with show descriptions provided by Karamu House.
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom”
By August Wilson
October 8 - 31, 2021
Director: Justin Emeka
It’s 1927 and Ma Rainey, the “Mother of the Blues,” is recording new sides of old favorites in a rundown studio in Chicago. Fiery and determined, Ma Rainey fights to retain control over her music, while her cocky trumpet player Levee dreams of making his own name in the business. More than music goes down in August Wilson’s riveting portrayal of rage, racism, self-hatred and exploitation.
Presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. The director is appearing courtesy of SDC, the Union of Professional Directors and Choreographers
“Black Nativity”
By Langston Hughes
December 3 - 23, 2021
Director: Tony F. Sias
“His tone has that intimate, elusive, near-tragic, near-comic sound of the Negro blues, and is equally defiant of analysis” is how a critic described this work by Langston Hughes, who mentions Paul Lawrence Dunbar, Carl Sandburg and Walt Whitman as his main literary influences. As a young man, Hughes participated enthusiastically in the activities of the Karamu Players in Cleveland, and later he was to found Negro theatres in Harlem, Los Angeles and Chicago. He wrote a number of plays and musicals before creating what he calls “the Gospel Song-Play” … which is Black Nativity. First performed at the York Theatre and then at President Kennedy’s International Jazz Festival, it went on to cause a sensation at the Festival of Two Worlds at Spoleto, Italy. A New York Times critic reporting from Spoleto wrote, “Sophisticated Italian audiences greeted Black Nativity with enthusiasm, taking part in the singing and hand clapping and insisting on curtain call after curtain call.” The staid Rome newspaper Il Tempo wrote, “The elegant festival public appeared to have forgotten itself, lost in this rhythmic wave that overwhelmed it, an integral part itself that bound stage and auditorium in a mystical fusion.” In London, Oslo, Brussels, Copenhagen and Rotterdam, Black Nativity triumphed before its return to New York and the then-new Lincoln Center. Black Nativity is designed for you to add the music of your choice (from spirituals to traditional carols or your original compositions) and dance. This thrilling holiday piece will have your audiences on their feet!
Langston Hughes’ Black Nativity is produced by special arrangement with DRAMATIC PUBLISHING, Woodstock, Illinois.
“The Mountaintop”
By Katori Hall
February 11, 2022 - March 6, 2022
Director: TBD
A gripping reimagination of events the night before the assassination of the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On April 3, 1968, after delivering one of his most memorable speeches, an exhausted Dr. King retires to his room at the Lorraine Motel while a storm rages outside. When a mysterious stranger arrives with some surprising news, King is forced to confront his destiny and his legacy to his people.
“The Mountaintop” is presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York
“American Moor”
By Keith Hamilton Cobb
May 6 – 29, 2022
Director: Kim Weild
A play written and performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb with Josh Tyson and directed by Kim Weild examining the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of William Shakespeare’s character Othello. A seasoned African American actor auditioning for the role of William Shakespeare’s iconic black hero must respond to the dictates of a younger white director who presumes to understand how to maximize the black character for believability. What could possibly go wrong? “American Moor” is a poetic exploration of Shakespeare, race, and America, not necessarily in that order.