09-15-2024 Fall Arts - Flipbook - Page 1
MORE FALL ARTS INSIDE
Hot ticket events that can’t be missed. 3
Baltimore designer,‘Project Runway’ star kicks off museum speaking series. 6
Explore the arts in Harford. 8
Fall TV lineup filled with adaptations. 9
Forthcoming fantasy novels offer readers an escape. 11
Fall film slate sparks questions that only watching them can answer. 12
THE BALTIMORE SUN
|
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2024
FALL
ARTS
PREVIEW
Jordan E. Cooper, left, writer and star of“Oh Happy Day,” and Stevie Walker-Webb, Center Stage artistic director and director of the play, before a rehearsal. KIM HAIRSTON/STAFF PHOTOS
HAPPY RETURNS
Will the premiere of playwright Jordan E. Cooper’s ‘Oh Happy Day!’
at Center Stage bring renewed attention to Baltimore’s theater scene?
By Mary Carole McCauley
he Tony-nominated playwright Jordan E. Cooper has
already upended Broadway.
Will Baltimore be next?
“Oh Happy Day!,” the 29-yearold playwright’s first show since
his maiden effort tossed the equivalent of a cherry bomb onto the
Great White Way, makes its world
premiere Sept. 27 at Center Stage.
And it will be the second time in
two years that Baltimore is receiving national attention for shows
that are being built and created in
Charm City.
Cooper’s Biblical based play with
music has already made it on the
radar of of New York theater insiders — just as last year’s Broadway
revival of “The Wiz” did when it
launched its national tryout from
the Hippodrome Theatre. (“The
Wiz” may have been a critical
misfire, but it was a commercial
success, racking up weekly
sales in the millions during
its 6-month limited Broadway run.)
After “Oh Happy Day!”
leaves Baltimore, it is
scheduled to open in
the 2025-26 season at
New York’s prestigious Public
Theatre. Cooper
and Center Stage artistic
director Stevie Walker-Webb said they are in
preliminary talks with producers
about a possible Broadway run.
T
GETTY
Walker-Webb, center, works on blocking with actors James T. Alfred, from left, as Lewis, Latrice Pace as Glory Divine,
Tamika Lawrence as Niecy and Cooper as Keyshawn during rehearsals.
Later this season, Center Stage
will host yet another high-profile premiere — the debut of “Mad
Men” creator and Baltimore native
Matthew Weiner’s play about presidential assassin John Wilkes Booth.
That’s three big-bang shows
back to back — and it’s generating a
level of interest nationally in Baltimore theater that the city hasn’t
enjoyed since the 1970s and 1980s
when it was among a handful of
“tryout towns” in which producers
worked out kinks in shows before
the casts bowed on Broadway.
“We have everything we need
to change the face of American theater right here in Baltimore,” said Walker-Webb, who
has worked with Cooper for more
than a decade after the two met at
Manhattan’s New School.
“For the first play of my first
season,” he said, “I wanted to pick a
play by my favorite playwright that
I think audiences will love.”
“Oh Happy Day!” is a black
comedy that updates and relocates
the biblical stories of Noah’s Ark
and the prodigal son to modernday Mississippi. A play with
Turn to‘Happy’, Page 2
‘Shoe muralist’ puts ‘that Baltimore
swag into everything he does’
Akio Evans is
creating art. Celebs
have taken notice
By Abigail Gruskin
In August, East Baltimore’s
Akio Evans put the finishing
touches on a one-of-a-kind pair of
Nike Air Force 1 skates commissioned by CFG Bank Arena. The
souped-up kicks — featuring
lyrics and imagery from Usher’s
nine studio albums — were then
presented by Mayor Brandon
Scott to the “DJ Got Us Fallin’ In
Love” singer himself, during his
“Past Present Future” tour stop in
Charm City.
“What [Akio] did with the
skates is what he does every day:
put that Baltimore swag into
everything he does,” Scott said in
an email to The Baltimore Sun.
Evans, 40, says his work is
about “changing the way we look
at shoes.”
“You add your heart, your art
into this piece,” Evans said from
his home studio, pointing out
goosebumps on his arm as he
talked about his creative process.
“Anybody is an artist.”
He’s a man of many endeavors:
a director and producer working
on a film about how Baltimore
saved Air Force 1’s; the founder
of a fashion brand called AkiO’s
Glorious Heroes (you can find
a capsule collection of shirts for
sale at The Sound Garden); and a
former animal cage washer at the
Johns Hopkins University.
Perhaps his most unique title,
however, is that of “shoe muralist.”
Evans crafts his shoes using a
mini iron-like transfer tool he’s
relied on for the last two decades,
with comic books and TV shows
among his influences. He’s made
pairs for a roster of celebrities
and athletes including comedians
Dave Chappelle and Kevin Hart,
basketball legend Allen Iverson,
and “The Woman King” director
Gina Prince-Bythewood, among
others. He’s also collaborated on
creative projects with the American Heart Association, HBO and
Marvel.
On Thursday at 6 p.m., he’ll
lead a free tote bag art workshop
at Lexington Market using archival photographs.
“I take selective imagery that
is very rare … and I put it onto
clothing like blazers, fedora hats,
sneakers — to be able to allow the
art to live outside of a museum,”
Akio Evans, an artist, filmmaker and shoe muralist, holds a pair of shoes
he designed for a member of Kevin Hart’s security detail. Evans, who has a
studio in the city, has created shoes for celebrities including Dave Chappelle
and Felicia“Snoop”Pearson. BARBARA HADDOCK TAYLOR/STAFF
Evans said, adding outdoor
murals to his list of inspiration.
“If you are wearing the mural,
you become the mural. You
become the art and you’re able to
educate people.”
A Pac-Man design fashioned
from the fabric of a knock-off
Burberry bucket hat and applied
to a pair of hospital shoes was
Turn to Evans, Page 2
