If I may indulge, check out the Courier today and read my stories about George Clinton and P-Funk, the Rock Hall of Famers and funk pioneers who trace their roots to Plainfield and Saturday will be playing what any of them can recall as their first official concert in Plainfield.
If you think P-Funk ain't about theater, you don't know your P from your Funk. Quite a spectacle, take my word for it.
It didn't make the story, but it was fun to hear, when I spoke to Clinton on the Phone, he said, "Courier News? When they said Courier News was on the phone, I knew that!" That's because when Clinton was a Plainfield barber in the 1960s, the Courier was still in Plainfield.
Anyway, read the story, go to the show. It's free. I wish I could go, but it's opening night for "The Play's the Thing" at Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey and if I don't go then, my whole weekend is nuked.
Other weekend recommendations:
Genesis Festival at Crossroads: Spoke last week to Crossroads Barbara Martalus, who was looking for a plug for Crossroads annual festival of new works. The company is still struggling to regain the recognition and momentum they enjoyed in the late 1990s, but they have completed two mainstage seasons in a row and its good to have the Genesis Fest back. But the media has been slow to jump on the bandwagon. I feel bad myself, given my fondness for the company and its founder, Ricardo Khan, who was my first acting teacher at Rutgers.
How great would it be for the NJ theater scene if Crossroads could climb back to the level it once achieved, winning a Tony for best regional theater and recognized as one of, if not the best, black theater company in the U.S.
A funny story from the old days: A press conference in the early 1990s, with Bill Cosby, who was doing a big benefit for Crossroads, which had just moved into its new theater on George Street. As the press waited in the gallery, Cosby and others came out to a table for questions. An aide brought refreshments to the table .. in Pepsi cups.
Cosby, then the chief spokesman for Coca Cola, looked at the cups, did a double take, looked at us, and smiled. It was priceless. Have a Coke and a smile, indeed.
Highlights of the press release follow since we didn't have the room to feature them in the paper.
Crossroads Theatre Company concludes the 2006-2007 season with The Genesis Festival on June 7, 8, and 9.
On Thursday June 7, doo-wop comes to the Crossroads stage with the new musical Great Googley Moo. Written by Michael Thomas Murray, this is a story about friendship, love, and harmony couched in one of the most exciting eras of American popular music--1950's Rhythm & Blues. The inspiration for this musical play comes from Murray's friendship with Jimmy Guilford who was an original member of the 1940's swing group the Inkspots and who subsequently had a long career as a doo-wop and soul singer. Great Googley Moo is the fictionalized story of those R & B artists who opened the doors for every rock star to follow but who, at the time, did not receive the recognition, credit, or compensation they deserved. The fictional, racially integrated vocal group of this musical may not have made it to the top but had a good time anyway, and the audience will experience the unity and spirit of these great songs along with the cast. In addition to being entertaining, Great Googley Moo carries a powerful message using street-corner harmony as a metaphor for creating peaceable relations in the world at large.
The Festival moves to the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum on the Rutgers University campus in New Brunswick on Friday and Saturday June 8th and 9th. On those evenings Genesis will highlight women in the arts and literature.
On Friday Linda Nieves-Powell returns to the Genesis Festival with excerpts from her up-coming novel Free Style which will be out in 2008 along with an introduction to her most recent play-in-progress Hector’s American Cuchifrito Joint. Free Style is a funny and inspiring novel about two thirty-something married moms--one separated and the other whose marriage is hanging on by a thread--who decide to do a “Thelma and Louise-like” caper and escape their everyday lives to revisit their past at a nightclub they had frequented in the early nineties.
Hector’s American Cuchifrito Joint opens in a restaurant with two young women arguing over their food choices--the menu is in Spanish and English. The scene gradually shifts into an exploration of what it means to be truly authentic as one of the characters has recently returned from college and feels she has lost her "urban side." Ms. Nieves-Powell, in reflecting on writing this play, cites inspiration from her own Grandmother and the importance of keeping her memory alive along with the cultural traditions that she brought to this country. Ms. Nieves-Powell's YO SOY LATINA! was originally part of the 2005 Genesis Festival work shop at Crossroads and was an overwhelming success which resulted in a full production directed by Ricardo Khan the following season. Ms. Nieves-Powell's decision to return to Genesis is the essence of the Festival's spirit of artistic growth with the support of the Crossroads audience.
On Saturday June 9, the writing team of Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant will read selections from their novels. Their first novel Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made was published in 1997and was a critical success, an Essence Bestseller and winner of the Merit Award for Fiction from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association, as well as the 1998 Book of the Year Award from the Blackboard Bestseller List/African American Booksellers Conference-Book Expo America. Their next novel Far From the Tree became a New York Times Bestseller, and Better Than I Know Myself received two Open Book Awards and was included on the Best African-American Fiction of 2004 lists of both Borders and Walden Books. In January 2008 the long awaited sequel to Tryin' to Sleep in the Bed You Made titled GOTTA KEEP ON TRYIN' will be published. Recently the two writers joined forces with two young Hollywood producers to form 4 Colored Girls Productions. Their first project is producing Tryin’ to Sleep in the Bed You Made as an independent feature film.
The annual Genesis Festival of New Voices began in 1990 as the brainchild of Crossroads’ Co-Founder Ricardo Khan and then New Play Development Director Sydne Mahone. The Festival is a means of giving voice to exciting young writers and new, cutting-edge forms of theatre in a nurturing, creative environment with the support and feedback of the Crossroads audience. Among the plays that have found their way from GENESIS to the world’s stages are Sheila’s Day, George C. Wolfe’s Spunk, Anna Deveare Smith’s Dream, The Darker Face of the Earth, Oak and Ivy and several original works by Ntozoke Shange, Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis.
Performances: Thurs. June 7 at 8:00 PM at Crossroads Theatre: Great Googley Moo
Fri. June 8 at 8:00 PM at the Zimmerli Art Museum: Linda Nieves-Powell: Free Style and Hector’s American Cuchifrito Joint
Sat. June 9 at 8:00 PM at the Zimmerli Art Museum: The Works of Novelists Virginia DeBerry and Donna Grant: In Perspective-What's Next?
Tickets: Crossroads Subscribers: no charge as part of subscription series; all others a suggested donation of $15, students $10. To secure your seat, call the Crossroads customer service line at 732-545-8100 and leave your name, telephone number, and the number of seats requested.
Location: Crossroads Theatre, 7 Livingston Ave., New Brunswick, NJ 08901
Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University campus, 71 Hamilton St., New Brunswick, NJ 08901
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