The breeze is gentle as I stand at a cluster of ruins on St. John, USVI, but the history here is not. Catherineberg is one of several sites on the island that mark where enslaved people labored long, hot, debilitating hours to produce sugar. The Catherineberg site has not been re-cast for more formal, official …
I want to sing praise for two Fort-Worth-based theatrical productions in this blogpost. But first I need to share a bit of context from July theatre-going beyond Texas that will help explain why I’m so proud of our local theatre scene. The Three Little Birds show Jubilee Theatre offered up recently as a multi-generational song-and-story …
Early in the new Stage West production of "Primary Trust," lead character Kenneth addresses the audience, offering up several interrelated observations about what they are about to see. "This is a story of how if you had asked me six months ago if I was lonely, I would have said--." But then, after a brief …
Continue reading Eboni Booth’s “Primary Trust” Celebrates Human Connections: A Grateful Review
I may not have been a typical audience member when I attended the opening-night performance of Stage West’s What the Constitution Means to Me on October 19. After all, I’m a professor currently teaching a course on citizenship literature. I arrived at the theatre a few days after facilitating a class discussion on John Marshall …
One link-up certainly invited by this text is to revisit Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Indeed, I’m currently re-reading Twain’s novel after recently completing Everett’s. And I may have some more detailed thoughts to share in that regard soon. title page of first edition first page of final chapter Already, though, just through …
Continue reading Percival Everett’s James Calls Out for Intertextual Reading
A Poignant Anniversary with Implications for Teaching Phillis Wheatley arrived in Boston from her African homeland 260 years ago this month, in July 1761. Though only about seven or eight years old, she was transported with other captives aboard the Phillis as part of an ongoing push to make slavery central to the economies …
Sarah Ruffing Robbins 