Amplifying Black Voices: New company celebrates with BIPOC Playwright’s Festival

One of the shared experiences that Myesha-Tiara and Jerulane “Jay” Jenkins had with their college careers was the discovery that there were few opportunities for people of color and that BIPOC students often went unsupported and their voices unheard.

So, when they were trying to decide what their new company, Perceptions Theatre, would do for their spring show, they decided to create a BIPOC Playwrights Festival, a two-weekend virtual one-act festival that features BIPOC playwrights, directors, and actors.

“We knew we wanted a festival,” Myesha-Tiara said. “She’s a playwright and I have other playwright friends and know how hard it is to get their works produced.”

They decided to start the first of what they plan to be an annual one-act festival that features several mini-shows. They ended up receiving 20 one-acts which they narrowed down to six that they are presenting.

“We wanted a variety of voices,” Myesha-Tiara said. “We wanted some that were speaking to the time we are in right now, some that were people of color having a tragedy, and some of them living their normal lives.”

The BIPOC Playwrights Festival will run from May 21 to June 15th, with new plays premiering at 7 p.m. CST. Tickets are pay what you can. When you purchase a ticket here, you will be sent a link to the YouTube performances.

Myesha-Tiara said future festivals will include more playwrights of color and not just Black playwrights. Most of the playwrights this year, she said, are Black-identified.

“Our company is in South Shore Chicago,” she explained. “Our mission is to uplift our Black community and to be a training ground for BIPOC artists.

The ages of the playwrights span the generations from Gen Z to Boomers. They received some submissions from teenagers to whom they gave feedback and encouraged them to submit again next year.

“We were just open. We wanted to have a mix of genres so it wasn’t all light or all so heavy, but just to have a balance,” Myesha-Tiara said. “We want to have you thinking once it is over.”

The six shows are:

Love and Nappiness by Kirsten Baity, directed by Kwame David Lilly

Premieres May 21, 7 p.m. CST.

This one-act is a three-woman show featuring a same-sex, inter-racial couple who goes to the salon as part of a bonding experience. Micro-aggressions toward Meraki, a Black woman with natural hair, ensue.

“We wanted to make sure we are including all diasporas and human beings and not just making stories for cis gender and straight couples,” Myesha-Tiara said. “’Love and Nappiness’ explores how the girlfriend and hair dressers don’t understand because they haven’t been a Black woman.”

Frenemies by Lou Johnson, directed by Jenkins, premieres May 22, 7 p.m. CST

In the war for racial justice, it is hard to identify real allies vs. those who just look like ones.

“Frenemy is trying to figure out who you can trust, who is truly an ally and who is just doing it for performative reasons,” Myesha-Tiara said.

You, Me and the Cat by Asha R. McAllister, directed by Des’ree Brown, premieres May 23, 7 p.m. CST

Relationships are always fraught with difficulty. What happens when one person loves the cat but the other doesn’t?

“’You, Me and the Cat’ is an interracial relationship with a Hispanic, Latinx man and a Black woman,” Myesha Tiara said. “The demise of their relationship is happening because of their house cat.”

Colorblind Casting by Antwon Funches, directed by Willow James, premieres May 28, 7 p.m. CST

The professor claims he doesn’t see color, which, for a young Black acting student has continued to cause problems at the predominantly white institution he is attending. When he gets assigned to a co-production role, things just get worse.

“A young Black undergrad has to have a conference meeting with his professor,” Myesha-Tiara said. “His group assignment with a white classmate isn’t going that well. This play focuses on how a show written by a Black artist can be whitewashed when white professors take on these projects that they don’t fully research. The cast of the show within a show is supposed to be done with Black people and his classmate has all white people to play Black people.”

Line of Duties, by Andre Richardson Hogan II, directed by Nia Vines, premieres May 29, 7 p.m. CST

The playwright based this play on his uncle, an active deacon in his church who died of COVID.

“It follows two Black men who are in a relationship and are trying to navigate the loss of their relative,” Myesha-Tiara said.

It’s A…, by Asha H. McAllister, directed by Myesha-Tiara, premieres May 30, 7 p.m.

Three sisters are at different points in their life, almost three different generations. The oldest has three kids, the middle is currently pregnant and hosting a gender reveal party and the youngest is in her early 20s, has no kids and is trying to figure life out.

“They’re all brought together to celebrate Jori’s baby at the gender reveal,” Myesha-Tiara said. “It deals with three different generations and family dynamics. It goes from Gen X to Millennial to Gen Z. You’re all in the same room and you think you are having the same conversation and you are worlds away.”

The plays in the festival, like all of the plays Perception Theatre puts on, uses a pay-what-you-can model. Tickets start at $5 and go up to $45, with people choosing what they can afford to pay.

Perceptions Theatre was founded at the end of 2019 and they had just held their first season auditions when the pandemic hit. Since most of their company members were Millennials or Gen Z, they decided they didn’t have to end theater just because COVID was keeping them from doing art in person. They took their first season virtual. It let them do a lot of things they might not have been able to do otherwise.

The actors and directors for the playwright come not just from Chicago, but all around the country including Baltimore and Texas. Myesha-Tiara said they dealt with the hurdles of different time zones to rehearse virtually with a large cast of actors.

Each show comes with bonuses and extras. They do interviews with actors and directors. The actor playing the professor in “Colorblind Casting” did an Instagram takeover where he did a “day in the life of an artist.” He was flooded with questions.

“We want to be an interactive theater,” Myesha-Tiara said. “We want to build community in South Shore and since we are virtual, a community outside of Chicago. We had audiences from all across America who watched our first show last year.”

Their shows are designed to speak to people politically or socially, to encourage people to question whether they do some of the things they see on the stage, if they behave in problematic ways and if so, what are their next action steps to be a better person?

“We’re new, but we’re mighty and we’re growing,” Myesha-Tiara said. “We want to showcase artists of color. That’s the whole reason we exist.”

www.perceptionstheatre.org