Award Winning Director
Latest Projects
Both And
Through clowning, poetic text, and a tour-de-force performance, the play deeply investigates the nucleus of Black joy. As her mother is dying, Teayanna finds herself in a netherworld between life and death, struggling to help her mother cross over.
The journey reveals the wisdom of the ancestors, invokes the legacy of the Middle Passage, and unfolds the surprising secrets within her mother’s purse. This unique and powerful story, rich with humor, raw honesty, and passion, becomes a brilliant meditation on how to reconnect with joy.
Photographer : Frank Inishman
She
“Dreams take you places even when you’re standing still…”
After receiving a rare opportunity to attend a prestigious boarding school 13-year old SHE is forced to face the harsh realities of adult life, discovering that the small town she was so desperate to escape is filled with the very people who give her wings to fly. This is an uplifting, lyrical tale of a young woman finding her voice.
Photographer: Jeff Lorch
The Bluest Eye
Pecola Breedlove, a young Black girl in 1940’s Ohio, wants nothing more than to be loved and prays for Shirley Temple’s blue eyes. Enthralling, gorgeously written, and incredibly heartrending, this stunning adaptation of Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winner Toni Morrison’s debut novel centers three young Black girls as they strive to make sense of love, sisterhood, abuse, and hate.
Photographer: Craig Schwartz
The Abuelas
Gabriela is an Argentine concert cellist living in Chicago with her American husband and adjusting to life as a new mom. A surprise visit from two strangers exposes a devastating secret in this visceral look at the repercussions of Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War.” This West Coast Premiere explores the heart’s capacity for forgiveness — even in the face of the harshest betrayal.
Photographer: Jenny Graham
Native Son
The longing for social justice ignites a palpable rage in Richard Wright’s classic novel, Native Son. Set in 1930s Chicago, where opportunities for African-American men like Bigger Thomas are elusive, writer Nambi E. Kelley’s gripping adaptation focuses on the inner workings of the protagonist’s mind as events violently and irrevocably seal his fate.
Awards
LA Times Critic's Choice
Photographers: Craig Schcwartz,
Geoffrey Wade
The Gospel At Colonus
A Pulitzer Prize Finalist Play The Gospel at Colonus examines the life of the mythical Oedipus the King through the powerful stained glass prism of the black Pentecostal Church. It is a thought-provoking celebration of the redemption of a man!
Photographer: Craig Schwartz
Storytellers, we are just getting started, through the light of the imagination…
My Short Film Trailer:
The Three Phases of Isa
The main character, Isa, embarks on a journey to liberate herself, from three generations of captivity.
I started exercising my filmmaking muscle and directed a short film last June here is a trailer of what I've been working on. A riveting story, a friend shared with me about her childhood friend.