Blk Girls Luv the Bard Announces 2021 Fall Virtual Reading and Community Conversation Series

Founded in 2020 by North Carolina-based director and producer, JaMeeka Holloway, BGLTB reimagines, reframes, and examines Shakespeare through the lens of Black and IPOC women with process, people, care and community-centered workshops and public readings using modern-verse translation commissioned by Play On! Shakespeare.

This Fall, in partnership with Play On Shakespeare and with the support of a Bold Ventures grant, a Helen Gurley Brown initiative, BLK GIRLS LUV THE BARD will present a series of three virtually streamed staged readings, along with a Community Conversation Series, titled Beyond Shakespeare: Confronting The Past, Exploring the Now and Shaping the Future, Facilitated by The Blueprint. The Blueprint is a network of professional, working artists who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, dedicated to providing comprehensive, holistic training to emerging artists from BIPOC communities.

The Reading Series will feature exclusively works commissioned by Play On Shakespeare.

Staged Readings from the series will be streamed live via YouTube, Thursday September 23 at 7:30 pm ET; Thursday, October 21 at 7:30 ET and Thursday, November 19 at 7:30 pm ET. Live readings will be preceded by (3) weeks of process-centered workshops. Dates for the accompanying conversation series will be announced at a later date.

Plays featured in BGLTB Fall Reading Series: Comedy of Errors in a modern-verse translation by Christina Anderson; Macbeth in a modern-verse translation by Migdalia Cruz; and Romeo and Juliet in modern-verse translation by Hansol Jung. Holloway definitely isn't a stranger to the translations in the Play On translations cannon and says she "aspires to explore and examine the entire Play On translations cannon, but first is most interested in the translations by people of color." Last year, when BGLTB first launched, she directed a virtual staged reading of Josh Wilder's Love Labour's Lost translation with all-Black women-identifying cast and dramaturgy, by Sam White, director and Founder of Shakespeare In Detroit.

In addition, Holloway directed Play On's Twelfth Night modern-translation by Alison Carey for Shakespeare in Detroit in 2017 and 2019 for the Play On Shakespeare Festival at Classic Stage in NYC. Earlier this year, Holloway directed Othello in modern-verse translation by Mfoniso Udofia, produced by the National Women's Theatre Festival with a diverse cast of Women of Color. Holloway has since broadened the BGLTB mission to include all BIPOC women, hoping that the space will help to increase cross-cultural dialogue amongst women of color, and she remains adamant that readings and performances will always be helmed by Black identifying women, femme, and non-binary artists.

The BGLTB team adds "During this time when as a field and industry we are also assessing exploitative, inhumane "production before people'' practices in theatre and the holistic impacts of our current pandemic, we will normalize and heavy-handedly implement care and people-over-product policy. The creative collaboration and communication tools used in the rehearsal room are effective tools for how we also engage our viewing audience. Our rehearsal and discussion spaces will intentionally model solidarity and allyship, by casting a diverse group of artists, panelists and community members."

Full List of Acting Artists will be released next week on the BGLTB Instagram page.

In addition to this stellar lineup of plays, Holloway along with co-producer, Roberta Insco-Cox, have brought together a mighty queue of all Black Women Directors and a full resident company of 11 actors from across the U.S. (who will rotate throughout each reading), a Resident Stage Manager, Sound Designer, Streaming Technician, and Resident Intimacy Director. Intimacy will be coordinated by Rachel Finley, a founding board member of Intimacy Coordinators and Directors of Color and Assistant Professor at Arizona State University.

Directors for the season are Raelle Myrick-Hodges (Comedy of Errors), with Dramaturgy by Korinn Annette Jefferies; Tia James (Macbeth) with dramaturgy by Dawn Monique Williams; and Kamilah Long (Romeo and Juliet) with dramaturgy by Amrita Ramanan.

Directors will reimagine the plays through an equity lens and conceptualize each reading using modern and socially relevant themes.

Funded in part by a Bold Ventures grant, A Helen Brown Gurney Initiative along with additional funding from Play On Shakespeare, and helmed by Black women directors, "BGLTB is designed to connect BIPOC theatre-makers interested in decolonizing, exploring and rethinking Shakespeare. Through our process and care-centered work, artists will shape "classical" work and make new rules on how it's practiced and performed. Holloway and Inscho-Cox say they "hope to widen the pipeline of opportunities by shifting the culture and putting these plays into the hands of visionary Black women directors and marginalized artists."

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