Black Playwrights Festival to showcase new plays

The Black Ensemble Theater has announced its 11th annual Black Playwrights Festival, running April 24-27 as part of the company’s Black Playwrights Initiative (BPI). Included in this year’s festival will be three new full-length and three new 10-minute plays, written by BPI members and developed through the BPI process. All of the featured scripts will receive readings directed by Daryl D. Brooks, associate director of the Black Ensemble.

The 2016 BPI Black Playwrights Festival opens at 7:30 p.m. on April 24, with ceremonies honoring Carla Stillwell, a director, playwright and artistic director of Chicago’s MPAACT company, and Reginald Edmund, a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists. It also will feature readings of three BPI Shorties (10-minute plays) by Audery Naomi Smith (“Starved”), Jill Ross (“Hairsterical”), and Viola Irvin (“Stealing Home”), along with selections from work by the honorees.

Showcases of the full-length plays will be begin with Wendell Etherly’s “Mr. Welfare” (April 25 at 7 p.m.), the story of a tavern owner who decides to help an alderman by providing shelter to several of the community’s homeless citizens during one of the most volatile periods in America. It will be followed by Ervin Gardner’s “The Lone Ranger Was a Black Man” (April 26 at 7 p.m.), which is based on the true life story of Bass Reeves, one of the first appointed Black U.S. Deputy Marshals, and arguably the greatest lawman to ever wear a badge. The final evening of the festival will feature Leonard Maceo Ferris’ “Hail Hail Chuck” (April 27 at 7 p.m.), a coming of age story set during the Jim Crow era, in which Chuck Berry fights the demons of his environment, and his own soul, to become an icon of the rock ‘n’ roll music his genius helped to create.

In a prepared statement, Jackie Taylor, artistic director of the theater noted: “Black Ensemble Theater is committed to identifying and developing new playwrights. Since the BPI started 11 years ago, many members have had their plays professionally produced at Black Ensemble Theater, throughout Chicago and across the nation. We invite the community to experience new readings by our playwrights in a series of entertaining evenings, and it is our mission to usher these talented black artists into the local and national spotlight.”

Tickets are $15 per evening or $40 for a Festival Pass and are available at the box office, online at www.blackensemble.org or by phone, (773) 769-4451. The Black Ensemble Theater Cultural Center is located at 4450 N. Clark Street. Valet parking is available for $10.