Category: acting

tings dey happen

as part of Adam Driver’s and Joanne Tucker’s Veterans Day benefit, got to hang with Jake Gyllenhaal and perform a monologue from Fences.

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also participated in the historic audio recordings of the entire August Wilson Century Cycle. when Ruben Santiago-Hudson calls, you say yes. I played Mame in Radio Golf, opposite Rocky Carroll.

 

 

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an evening of visual art, music and text at Symphony Space was another highlight of the fall. sharing the stage with BD Wong, Olympia Dukakis, John Guare and others in an evocation of the day before the assassination of JFK on November 22, 1963 was chilling and full of surprising insights. The New York Times reviewed it.

this tux was courtesy of designer Clint Ramos for our Encores! Off Center production of The Cradle Will Rock. it includes shoes that, though tasty looking, were not particularly stable. falling down in front of over a thousand people—that’s gotta be good for you, right?

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Flowers Are Sleeping.

by creating this musical, I brought all of the things I do—acting, singing, writing music, writing scenes—into one room. absolutely liberating.

director Liesl Tommy, actor-singers Darius de Haas, Dashiell Eaves, Nicole Lewis, band members Jon Spurney, Mark Vanderpoel, Sydney Driver, Nick Rolfe, and visual artist Steffani Jemison worked with me to make this piece wonderful. and it all happened because of Laura Kaminsky commissioning me at Symphony Space.

here’s a little video from a rehearsal…

the Alpert Award.

I am a recipient of the Alpert Award in Theatre, a distinction that has revived my optimism,  joy, and courage about playmaking. we had a fantastic time putting together the web feature for the award, which in many ways is a continuation and supplement of this site, and the conversations and experiences with the panelists, staff, and other awardees were unbelievably rich. I’m inspired, and hope you are too.

thank the mighty Daniel Alexander Jones for capturing and creating this moment.
photo by Daniel Alexander Jones
clips from Angela’s Mixtape

because you missed it, or you miss it, like me.

courtesy of Actors Equity Association. featuring Kim Brockington, Denise Burse, Eisa Davis, Ayesha Ngaujah, and Linda Powell, directed by Liesl Tommy. co-produced by Hip Hop Theater Festival and New Georges.

I’m Berniece, and composer, and music director.

 

 


The Cast of The Piano Lesson

Joniece Abbott-Pratt Eisa Davis Tyrone Mitchell Henderson Charlie Hudson, III

Joniece
Abbott-Pratt

EISA
DAVIS

TYRONE MITCHELL
HENDERSON

CHARLIE
HUDSON, III

Leroy McClain Keith Randolph Smith Charles Weldon Malenky Welsh

LEROY
MCCLAIN

KEITH RANDOLPH
SMITH

CHARLES
WELDON

MALENKY
WELSH

Pittsburgh, 1936. An ornately carved upright piano sits in the home of Berniece Charles (Eisa Davis), who plans to pass it along to her daughter. But her brother, Boy Willie (LeRoy McClain), has another plan for the prized, hard-won heirloom: to sell it for the hard cash to buy the same Mississippi land that their family once worked as slaves. The Piano Lesson is the intimate story of a brother and sister and their struggle to embrace or deny their epic inheritance.

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Open Captioning December 11 - Audio Description December 18

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WELCOME TO THE RILEYS

we shot this film in New Orleans right after the 2008 election. the director Jake Scott created a lovely energy on set that was still palpable by the end of the shoot, and working with the late Jim Gandolfini was an unforgettable honor. I’m in the beginning of the movie.

welcometotherileys

ANGELA’S MIXTAPE named a Best of 2009 by The New Yorker

yes it was! here’s the link. also got a nod in the Village Voice’s column for contributing to best theater of the decade.

The New York Times review

“On this mixtape, style will dictate, we bounce back and forth in time…”

Using the rhythms of music and memory, Angela’s Mixtape tells the story of Eisa’s radical upbringing on the dividing line between Oakland and Berkeley, California—in a family that includes her aunt, professor and activist Angela Davis.

Time shifts between the 70s, 80s, and 90s as smoothly as a DJ fading from song to song. Each track, each memory, has a built-in switch to the next, for theatrical momentum that keeps on building.

The music crosses styles and decades, but it’s hip-hop and a b-girl stance that keeps the piece bouncing in the present.

pictured below: the cast, and the cast paired with the people they play. I’m not playing Ellen Burstyn though. or Alicia Keys.

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THIS by Melissa James Gibson.

just closed THIS, acting, singing, and playing piano. the show, one of The New York Times’ bests of 2009, was an absolute dream to be a part of. shouts out to the visionary Melissa, Daniel Aukin on direction, Louis Cancelmi, Glenn Fitzgerald, Julianne Nicholson, and Darren Pettie on stage, and Peter Eldridge for his beautiful music. here’s an interview I did about the show as well as The New York Times review. Glenn also took some lovely photos of the cast during tech that were featured in the Times. another of his pictures is below. bye….

THIStech

 

passing strange the movie

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after an unbelievably reviewed theatrical premiere (100% on Rotten Tomatoes), Spike Lee’s film of Annie Dorsen’s and Stew’s and Heidi’s Passing Strange is now available on DVD and on demand. it’s exceedingly rare to have a record of what we do in the theatre—this brilliant film documents the ephemeral, ecstatic time we had on stage.

www.passingstrangethemovie.com.