Vocal Expressions

I’m a huge Eric Jerome Dickey fan and yes…he is my writer crush. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, let’s dive into Bad Men and Wicked Women whose title intrigued me to take the journey to get to know the two main characters, Ken Swift (from Mississippi) and Jake Ellis (his Ghanaian friend in crime). Both are low-level enforcers who work for San Bernardino. Ken is a complicated guy who is divorced from Jimi Lee (Ethiopian) and they have a daughter, Margaux, pregnant and in trouble, who’s squeezing him for fifty thousand dollars. He has a girlfriend, Rachel Redman (the singing Eskimo with roots that go back to Eritrea). He would sometimes lust for Bernice Nesbitt, his African-British neighbor across the street and even toy with the idea of meeting a beautiful Senegalese woman in Africa (at Jake’s urging). Jake Ellis, on the other hand, is an unencumbered proud Ghanaian, godfather to Margaux, a pugilist, a great cook, and loves the ladies. He’s not afraid to step to any...

I recently saw Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally , the fourth play of the 2019/2020 season at Baltimore Center Stage. It is written by Noah Diaz and directed by Taylor Reynolds in co-production with The Playwrights Realm.   Once I settled into my seat, I was drawn into this 1950s tale with a present day feel of a dysfunctional family coming to terms with grief, loss, estrangement, and finding love in between. Richard (played by Neimah Djourabchi) is dying from a terminal illness and reaches out to his estranged sister, Jane (played by Michelle Beck) in an effort to mend their relationship. Although an adult, Jane still feels twinges of being under his shadow.   Now she’s come back to the house where they both grew up in and feels like a guest amidst his children whom she doesn’t really know. Dick (played by Jay Cobi á n), Richard’s son misses his mother (played by Vanessa Kai) dearly who passed away and dresses up in her clothes and shoes in hopes of being close t...

On Saturday, February 1, 2020 I attended the Black Writers’ Guild Black History Month presentation – “The Life & Times of Alberta Jones” presented by Keenan Conigland (screenwriter and author) via video. What drew me to this talk was not only was Alberta Jones one of the first African-American woman to pass the bar, the first female city attorney in Jefferson County and Muhammad Ali’s first attorney (they lived not too far from each other) but the fact that she was murdered in 1965 and the case remains unsolved. At the time of her death, Ms. Jones was thirty-four years old and a civil rights pioneer in the prime of her life. Mr. Conigland talked about how he discovered this story via the New York Times and how he pursued getting the life rights from the family.   He is in the process of bringing this story to the screen and walked the audience through knowing and protecting our rights as a screenwriter (e.g. copywriting creative content, negotiating with the movie st...