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Ngozi Anyanwu, Marlow Wyatt Humanitas/CTG Playwriting Prize Finalists

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Ngozichukwuka Anyanwu and Marlow Wyatt are among 10 finalists announced for the inaugural HUMANITAS/CTG Playwriting Prize by Center Theatre Group, Los Angeles’ leading nonprofit theatre company. More than 200 play submissions (which took place during June) were received by CTG, which manages programming seasons at three venues: Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre at the Music Center; and the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.

The partnership between HUMANITAS and CTG, as part of the program PLAY LA, supports the best new, unproduced play by emerging or mid-career playwrights based in Southern California. The winning playwright will receive a $5,000 cash prize and $5,000 will be given to a local theatre to subsidize a world premiere production. Additionally, two runners-up will be awarded a $2,000 cash prize.

The works of Anyanwu and Wyatt celebrate girl power with Good Grief and SHE, respectively.

Good Grief follows Nkechi, a first-generation Nigerian girl whose misadventures consist of love, loss and growing up. Anyanwu is the founder and artistic director of the 1st Generation Nigerian Project. The actress, writer and producer also is co-artistic director of NOW AFRICA’s Playwrights Festival. She holds an MFA in acting from University of California, San Diego. Anyanwu will direct She Gon’ Learn by Lisa Rosetta Strum at the Obie Award-winning The Fire This Time Festival, which will run Jan. 18 through Feb. 6, in New York.

SHE tells the story of a young girl who discovers the small town she desperately wants to flee is filled with the very people who give her wings to fly. Wyatt, a Kansas City native and magna cum laude graduate of Howard University, is a two-time recipient of the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS Discretionary Grant. Her other works include: Living the Dream; Our Music, Our Spirit, Our Gospel; Blue Diamond Daddies; and Li’l Easy. After volunteering with the Los Angeles School District, Wyatt developed The Girl Blue Project in 2003. The empowerment program for teen girls uses performing arts to combat images of overly sexualized girls, violence, drug use, discrimination, poverty, and sexual and physical abuse.

According to the HUMANTIAS Prize website, the plays will be developed with CTG’s literary staff, led by CTG’s Director of New Play Development Pier Carlo Talenti, and presented in professional readings Feb. 12-14, at Kirk Douglas Theatre as part of a weekend celebration of new plays.

In fulfilling its mission to “change the world one story at a time,” the HUMANITAS Prize was created in 1974 “to honor film and television writers whose work explores the human condition in a nuanced, meaningful way which, ultimately, inspires compassion, hope and understanding in the human family.” HUMANITAS, founded by Father Ellwood Kieser (1929-2000), believes film and television writers have enormous power to break down the separating walls of ignorance, racism and hatred. The organization, under the leadership of President Ali LeRoi (“Everybody Hates Chris”, “Are We There Yet?”), exists to find common humanity by exploring the hopes and fears of diverse human beings.

The HUMANITAS/CTG Playwriting Prize awardees will be announced at the annual HUMANITAS dinner Monday, Jan. 11, at the Directors Guild.

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Award Nominations

Cynthia Erivo Nominated for BAFTA’s Rising Star Award

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Cynthia Erivo at Opening Night of the Color Purple. Photo by Drew Shade

Tony, Emmy, and Grammy Award-winning actress, Cynthia Erivo, known for her transformative performance as Celie in the 2015 Broadway revival of The Color Purple is now one of five actors nominated for the British Academy of Film’s 2019 Rising Star Awards.

Most recently seen alongside Viola Davis in Steve McQueen’s Widows, Erivo says:

“I’m ever grateful to BAFTA and the jury panel for nominating me for the 2019 EE Rising Star Award. It means the world to me to be acknowledged by the community that, for most of my life, I’ve known as home. Thank you for this incredible honour.” – Cynthia Erivo

The BAFTA Awards will take place on February 10th.

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Get Your War Clothes On: Billy Porter Energizes in GLAAD Acceptance Speech

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billy porter

So, I have a question.

In the same line of thought as “innocent until proven guilty,” do we grant the assumption of positive intent in our expectations of our brothers and sister in regards to woke-ness, à la woke until proven problematic?

Now don’t get me wrong, there was no doubt in my heart that Tony and Grammy Award-winner, Billy Porter, was woke. Nope, none. What I wasn’t ready for, was the way he fixed his fingers to pen one of the greatest acceptance speeches of my lifetime, and how he turned the Gospel classic “I Don’t Feel No Ways Tired” into a battle song.

The 28th Annual GLAAD Media Awards honored Billy Porter with the Vito Russo Award, presented to an openly LGBTQ media professional who has made a significant difference in promoting equality and acceptance.

He started by affirming the room full of members of marginalized communities, with my personal daily mantra: “You are enough. we are enough.”

Since the beginning of time artists are the folks who engage critically and encourage those who think they are powerless to question the status quo.

Brothers and sisters across the room leaned in.

The days of shut up and sing are over.

Alliteration informed and illustrated as Porter preached on remaining “vigilantly visual” as we tell our stories. Acknowledging the reality of our times, he spoke on Number 45:

Where they slipped up this time is in that declaration of war. It’s not only against Black and Brown people and Queer people anymore, it’s against ALL of us. And as a result, the good news is: white folk, and straight folk, and all those fierce women folk, are mad now. And NOW maybe something might get done!

Get. Your. War. Clothes. On.

From slavery to emancipation, to the 13th Amendment, to Jim Crow, to the Civil Rights Movement. From Stonewall to AIDS, to marriage equality— we gotta remember the shoulders who we stand on—the ones who fought and died for those freedoms that we hold so dear. Let’s use these historical strides we’ve made as a nation to empower us as warriors on this battlefield of equality.

Amen.

Until we can figure out how to love one another unconditionally, no one wins. Freedom. Equality. Justice. Have always come at a cost and evidently the always will.

If that’s not the truth.

Stay strong. Stay vigilante. Stay visible. Stay hopeful. Stay focused. Be brave. Be fierce.

Resist.

RESIST.

RESIST.

RESIST.

For a full list of this year’s winners, honorees, and guests, visit GLAAD.

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