POTLIQKA
Potliqka is about the diasporic experience (mostly, but not limited to Black American experience) before the Emancipation Proclamation was passed. The play tracks love, separation, undocumented history, oral history, religion, and hope for freedom through a lens of diasporic culinary history from 1790 – 1820. I recently completed the first draft, and I have a million questions that I’m enthusiastic to explore. Potlikka is the first script I’ve ever written that isn’t structured to be a 90-minute play. This script is also my first time crafting my ancestor’s stories during slavery. My heart, my soul, and my blood so badly want to get this right; I want to honor my ancestors with grace and respect. I want to illuminate their ambitions, humor, interests, and personalities, and epitomize the bondage of slavery without writing trauma porn or crafting a play that pains my people. I’m honored to feel moved to write this story and recognize the great responsibility. Potlikka is in very early stages, but I’m proud to finally have a draft.
WJLB
WJLB is a crumbling but loved radio station created for and by Black folks. Despite everything, it has and will continue to survive and stand the test of time. In 1969 the station is inherited by Cap, a natural-born entertainer searching for love. He runs the radio with Okra, a quick-witted survivalist who dreams of a love-filled future with Cap. Like the station, Aunt Sistah seems to always be around, even though she’s grieving the death of her daughter and seeking deliverance for her sins. The unlikely trio struggles to maintain the station’s legacy despite love triangles, the Vietnam War, community troublemakers, financial burdens, and their own egos. Over the course of 30 years, the radio station persists as the characters of the play slowly discover how to make themselves whole.
CONTENTIOUS WOMAN
Contentious Woman is a choreopoem that intertwines the lives of five Black women working as stemmers at a tobacco factory in 1919 while drawing parallels to contemporary life. Through poetry, song, dialogue, and choreography, the women navigate the complexities of girl and womanhood, labor, love, identity, questioning what success truly means and how they want to define their worth and exist in Jim Crow America. Set against the backdrop of a rich historical landscape of Durham, North Carolina, the play explores themes of survival, resilience, revolution, and the dreams that both bind and sustain them. As they endure the physical and emotional tolls of their work, each woman faces pivotal decisions that force her to confront her hopes, struggles, and capacity for change. Contentious Woman is a tribute to my ancestors, inspired by a visit to a plantation in Durham, North Carolina, where the voices of the past boisterously echo through the present. Through music, movement, vivid poems, and so much love this play celebrates the strength, resilience, and complexity of Black women’s lives, honoring their voices and stories with both grace and power.