On Her Shoulders Presents ON THE THIN CRUST OF CIVILIZATION: The Plays of Marita Bonner
On Her Shoulders is pleased to present a virtual reading program: ON THE THIN CRUST OF CIVILIZATION: The Plays of Marita Bonner, directed by Magaly Colimon-Christopher, via NPTC's YouTube Channel: NewPerspectivesTC. Arminda Thomas provides dramaturgy via The Play in Context, which situates the scripts in their historical time and place.
The broadcast begins at 2:00pm on Saturday, April 9th and will be available through midnight on April 13, 2022. Admission is by Donation. Register on Eventbrite.
about the playwright
MARITA BONNER (1899-1971) was born in Boston and attended Brookline High School, where she excelled in German and Music, and was a talented pianist. She enrolled at Radcliffe in 1918 and was an accomplished student, participating in many musical clubs (she twice won the Radcliffe song competition) and founding the Radcliffe chapter of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. After graduation, Bonner began teaching, first at the Bluefield Colored Institute in West Virginia and then at Armstrong High School in Washington, D.C. While in D.C., Bonner’s early pieces began to appear in periodicals, and she became closely associated with poet, playwright and composer Georgia Douglas Johnson, whose "S Street salon" was a gathering place for writers and artists involved in what would become known as the Harlem Renaissance. In 1930, Bonner married William Occamy, and shortly after, the couple moved to Chicago and she continued writing under her married name.
Throughout her life, Bonner wrote many short stories, essays and plays, and was a frequent contributor to The Crisis (the magazine of the NAACP) and Opportunity (official publication of the National Urban League) between 1925 and 1940. Her first essay, "On Being Young–A Woman–And Colored" (1925), highlighted the limits put on black Americans at that time, especially black women; it won the inaugural essay contest sponsored by The Crisis. Bonner regularly discussed poverty, familial relations, urban living, colorism, feminism, and racism in her works. She also often wrote about multi-ethnic communities, and was ardently opposed to generalizations of black experience, making her an early advocate for intersectionality. Bonner wrote three plays: The Pot Maker (1927), The Purple Flower - A Play (1928) and Exit, an Illusion (1929). Described variously as allegorical, surrealistic, expressionistic or simply abstract, The Purple Flower is considered to be her masterpiece. It won the 1927 Crisis Prize for "Literary Art and Expression", but it was never produced, possibly because the play's radical message is more in keeping with the black theatre of the 1960s and 1970s, rather than the "folk" or "propaganda" plays of the Harlem Renaissance. It has only recently been acknowledged as a singular contribution to African American Theatre. In 2017, Bonner was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame.
About the director & dramaturg
MAGALY COLIMON-CHRISTOPHER (Director) is a first-generation Haitian American actress/playwright/director/producer. As the Producing Artistic Director and Founder of Conch Shell Productions, her mission is to develop, present, and produce new works by Caribbean Diaspora & Caribbean writers who have a passion for innovative storytelling that inspires social change. Directing credits include: Dark Skinned Kid Who Hopped the Turnstile, by Tylie Rider; Till Hell Freezes Over by Tonya Pinkins; The Nonessentials by Lynda Crawford and her own works:Yes Madame (Official selection at Pan African Film Fest, Martha’s Vineyard Film Fest, ReelSisters); BN4Real; Her Tory; Muddled Images. She is a recipient of a Fox Foundation Fellowship, 2021 City Artist Corps Grant, and her plays The Hunting Season and Silent Truth were semi-finalists for the O'Neill National Playwright Conference. Magaly holds a B.A. from Columbia University, an MBA from Binghamton University, and an MFA in Acting from Yale School of Drama.
ARMINDA THOMAS (Dramaturg). A dramaturg, director, and archivist, she is currently co-producer and dramaturg for CLASSIX, which seeks to expand the classical canon through an exploration of dramatic works by Black writers. She has served as associate artistic director and resident dramaturg for the Going to the River Festival and Writer’s Unit and as archivist and literary manager for Dee-Davis Enterprises, where she was an executive producer for the Grammy-awarded audiobook, “With Ossie and Ruby: In This Life Together,” and consultant for the film "Life’s Essentials with Ruby Dee". She has been a Resident Dramaturg with NPTC's ON HER SHOULDERS program since 2016. Other dramaturgical work with various theatres includes Theatre for a New Audience, Baltimore Center Stage, New Federal Theatre, Classical Theatre of Harlem, and Signature Theatre. Thomas is also the writer/adapter of Shakespeare’s Women, a” remix” of several Shakespearean works, which premiered at Hattiloo Theatre. She received her BA in Theater and Comparative Literary Studies from Occidental College and her MFA in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism from Columbia University.
cast
CK Allen, Janelle Clayton, Laura E Johnston*, Joshua Josey, Ian Lawrence, Raven Ray Simone
*Actors’ Equity
