Changing Your Nation and Changing Your Station: the Playwright's Relationship to Heritage, Representation and Legacy
Monday, 22 March 2010
National Theatre Archive, 83-101 The Cut, London SE1 8LL | map
THIS EVENT HAS TAKEN PLACE
Kwame Kwei-Armah. ©2007 BBC
This discussion will focus upon the transformations of perception wrought by 'changing your nation and changing your station,' which draws on history, the present and the reception abroad of contemporary dramatists and the ways in which they seek to project their work beyond the UK. It will consider Kwame's recent television road trip following the route of Queen Elizabeth's 1953 Commonwealth tour, and Michael's mentoring of an incarcerated writer and commission from the Caribbean Unity Theatre. This is a chance for taking stock for both writers - who arguably exemplify two different generations of black British writers.
MICHAEL BHIM won the Alfred Fagon Award in 2005 for Dreams of Hailey. This was followed by Distant Violence at the Tricycle Theatre and two plays for the Royal Court Theatre. He is currently writing commissioned plays for the Royal Court and Hampstead theatres, Tiata Fahodzi and the Caribbean Unity Theatre. His short story, Rocket Man was recently published by Brand.
KWAME KWEI-ARMAH has written eight plays; the Royal National Theatre commissioned three: Elmina's Kitchen (2003), which upon its transfer to the Garrick Theatre in 2005, was the first play ever by a black British-born dramatist to be staged in the West End. Fix Up (2004) was followed by Statement of Regret (2007) and two seasons at the Tricycle Theatre for Let There Be Love in 2007/8. He is also known as an actor, singer broadcaster for Newsnight Review and television writer.
DR DEIRDRE OSBORNE is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre Arts at Goldsmiths, University of London and a literary activist for promoting the work of black British writers. She has interviewed and published essays on many black British writers over the past decade; she was contributing editor of an anthology of critical essays and plays, Hidden Gems (Oberon, 2008) and is currently writing Critically Black: Black British Dramatists and Theatre in the New Millennium (Manchester University Press).
This lecture follows on from the Black British Theatre Study Day at the National Archive, from 1-6.30pm on the same day.
Related STR Pages Current Lecture Programme Black British Theatre - Study Day (earlier same day)
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14th March 2010 |
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