BlackPlayBook Production: Your Blues Ain't Like Mine: A Drama Suite for Social Justice

FVSU’s Joseph Adkins Players Student Drama Group presents “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine: A Drama Suite for Social Justice”

The Fort Valley State University Joseph Adkins Players (JAP) proudly presents “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine: A Drama Suite for Social Justice” as our Spring 2014 production.  This production is our artists’ response to the circumstances surrounding the recent shooting deaths of young African Americans including Trayvon Martin, Reneisha McBride, Jonathan Ferrell and Jordan Davis.  “Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine” is made up of two one act lynching plays that include “Saving White Face” which was adapted by Dr. Maisha S. Akbar (JAP faculty advisor) from Bebe Moore Campbell’s best -selling novel, Your Blues Ain’t Like Mine (1992). In fact, Campbell’s estate granted Dr. Akbar special permission to produce this show.  The second play, “Safe” (1929), was written by Harlem Renaissance writer Georgia Douglas Johnson.  Johnson depicts incidents around the1899 lynching of Sam Hose. Hose, whose murder was one of the most infamous lynchings in American history, was a native of Marshallville, Georgia, which is only 10 miles away from The Fort Valley State University campus.

Through this performance, JAP foregrounds the anti-lynching activism that was spearheaded by Ida B. Wells Barnett; as well as that of the NAACP, the Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching  (ASWPL) and many other visual and literary artists who sought to interrogate cultural fictions that were (re)produced to justify the extralegal murders of countless African Americans.

Under the direction of Dr. Maisha S. Akbar, Fort Valley State University’s Joseph Adkins Players (JAP) student drama group performs on a “play-ground” of performance, scholarship and activism.  In addition to delivering cutting edge productions, JAP members use theater to engage in scholarly research and consider issues of social justice.   JAP operates as an official student group that represents FVSU at national theater and communications conferences such as those of the National Communication Association (NCA), the Black Theatre Network (BTN).  JAP’s organizational motto is, “Saving the Drama for the Stage.”

JAP thanks you for your continued support of our shows. Follow us on twitter @JAP_FVSU. Enjoy the show!

Best regards,

Maisha S. Akbar, Ph.D., JAP Faculty Advisor

Akbarm@fvsu.edu

www.Blackplaybook.com; @ablackplaybook

BlackPlayBook Production: Lynching Drama Scholarship

BlackPlayBook Production: FVSU's JAP presents "School Daze-LIVE!"

“PARTY LIKE A BLACK NERD!” - 

A NOTE FROM MAISHA S. AKBAR, PH.D. JOSEPH ADKINS PLAYERS’FACULTY ADVISOR

“Cease to be a drudge, seek to be an artist,” Mary McLeod Bethune- founder, Bethune Cookman University; educator; civil rights activist

The Fort Valley State University’s Joseph Adkins Players student drama group is pleased to present “School Daze Live!  An Interactive Film Experience” as a part of Homecoming 2013. Our production goal is to foreground the performance based traditions of Historically Black Universities and Colleges (HBCUs) as modes of critical thought and activism. Not only does Spike Lee’s 1988 homage provide an entertaining backdrop for homecoming fun (Wildcats TurnUp!), but it also serves as a reference for African American intellectual traditions such as Carter G. Woodson’s “Mis-education of the Negro,”  and W.E.B. DuBois’ “The Talented Tenth.”  Lee also alludes to Malcolm X’s and Nelson Mandela’s respective activism outside of the black academy. 

The twenty five years since “School Daze” was released spans a remarkable generation of economic, social and cultural change.  Who could have possibly anticipated any ONE of the following events, let alone them ALL? Among other ordeals, America has endured:  Rodney King’s beating and L.A. riots; O.J. Simpson trial, rise of privatized prisons and “The New Jim Crow,” the dot com, real estate and (pending) school loan bubbles; Tyler Perry, 9/11; wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; Enron and Worldcom corporate scandals; Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency of the United States; and Trayvon Martin’s murder/ George Zimmerman’s acquittal.

Through it all, HBCU’s have managed to survive. However, HBCU’s existence in an age of a Black POTUS is still a source of controversy.  President Obama’s tone when addressing Black audiences, such as Morehouse College’s 2012 graduating class, is said to be condescending. Most recently, arguments have been levied that through changes to loans often used by black students, President Obama is neglecting HBCUs. If “School Daze” were being filmed today, such debates might be included in it. 

                Under the direction of Maisha S. Akbar, Ph.D. FVSU’s Joseph Adkins Players perform within a “play-ground” of performance, scholarship and activism. JAP is an official performance based student group that is active in national organizations like the National Communication Association, the Black Theatre Network and the Association of Theatre in Higher Education.  JAP’s motto is “Saving the drama for the stage.”

Thank you for your continued support of our endeavors. Enjoy the show!

Happy Homecoming!

Maisha S. Akbar, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor of Speech/Drama. Faculty Advisor, Joseph Adkins Players

akbarm@fvsu.edu,  www.Blackplaybook.com, @ablackplaybook

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