Red Clay Plays

MOJOAA Performing Arts Company

Featuring audio dramas and interviews with brilliant artists, Red Clay Plays champions Southern Black playwrights and the worlds they create with their words. Produced by MOJOAA Performing Arts Company, based in Raleigh, NC.

  1. An Interview with Dr. Lisa B. Thompson

    EPISODE 2

    An Interview with Dr. Lisa B. Thompson

    Welcome to our first interview on Red Clay Plays with Dr. Lisa B. Thompson! In this episode we talk about Afrofuturism, mothers who make art, writing the comedy out of pain and, of course, being a Southern Black playwright. Lisa B. Thompson is an award winning playwright, scholar, and professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of three books, Beyond The Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American Middle Class (University of Illinois Press, 2009), Single Black Female (Samuel French Inc. 2012), and Underground, Monroe, and The Mamalogues: Three Plays (Northwestern University Press, 2020). Thompson’s plays, which have been produced off-Broadway, throughout the US and internationally, include Single Black Female (LA Weekly Theatre Award for Best Comedy nominee, Irma P. Hall Black Theatre Award Best Play winner), Underground, (Austin Critics Circle David Mark Cohen New Play Award winner, Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work nominee), Monroe (Austin Playhouse Festival of New Texas Plays winner), The Mamalogues (Broadway World Regional Awards Best Writing of an Original Work winner), and Dinner (Crossroads Theatre Genesis New Play Festival). Thompson has received teaching awards from the Texas Exes and the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies. Her scholarly and creative work has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies; the University of Texas at Austin’s Humanities Institute; the W. E. B. DuBois Research Institute at Harvard University; the Michele R. Clayman Institute for Gender Research; the Five Colleges, the University of California’s Office of the President; Stanford University’s Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity; Hedgebrook; the Millay Colony for the Arts; and MacDowell. You can find Dr. Lisa's work at: https://lisabthompson.com Twitter: @drlisabthompson Instagram: @drlisabthompson Learn more about MOJOAA at: www.MOJOAA.org Facebook: @MOJOAApac Instagram: @MOJOAApac

    41 min
  2. An Interview with Brittney S. Harris

    EPISODE 8

    An Interview with Brittney S. Harris

    In this episode we have the pleasure of speaking with playwright, professor, and researcher Brittney S. Harris! Listen in as we share our belief in the power of the arts to change hearts and minds, finding stories in our communities and of course, the joys of being a Southern Black theatre maker. Brittney S. Harris is an Assistant Professor of Theatre in the Department of Communication and Theatre Arts at Old Dominion University. She holds a Master of Fine Arts in Acting from the University of Georgia. Brittney’s research efforts are supported and documented by the practices of PaR (Performance as Research). Her areas of expertise are in Race and Performance, Theatre for Social Change, and performative community-engaged programming. Throughout the Southeast regions of VA, NC, DC, and GA, Brittney has created several community engagement-based projects and conducted workshops on solo performance development and devised theatre at several national interdisciplinary conferences including the 1st Annual Richmond Fringe Festival, 2020 Mid-America Theatre Conference, Black Theatre Network Annual Conference, and 2019 Gender, Bodies & Technology Conference: TechnoLogics: Power and Resistance.   Most recently, her short play The Amazin’ Jason was an official section for the Fade to Black Theatre Festival, Houston TX and she is workshopping and touring her two solo performance projects, The Intersection: The Sandra Bland Project and Being B.A.D.; each project explores the adverse effects of violence in social media on the personal psyche and how narrative-based storytelling is used as a vessel for social resilience and redemption. You can find Brittney’s work at  https://brittneysharris.com Facebook Learn more about MOJOAA at: www.MOJOAA.org Facebook/Instagram: @MOJOAApac

    41 min

About

Featuring audio dramas and interviews with brilliant artists, Red Clay Plays champions Southern Black playwrights and the worlds they create with their words. Produced by MOJOAA Performing Arts Company, based in Raleigh, NC.