Playwrights & Performers: Keith Josef Adkins
Keith Josef Adkins is a playwright, performer, and leader in the New York City theater community. His plays include Sweet Home, Sugar and Needles, The Final Days of Negro-ville, Safe House, and Pitbulls, which is currently playing at the Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in New York City. He is also the artistic director at The New Black Fest and in that role produced FACING OUR TRUTH: Ten Minute Plays On Trayvon, Race and Privilege and HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments. HANDS UP premiered just last week. It is six monologues written by six black male playwrights in response to the police shootings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and John Crawford III in Beavercreek, Ohio about the “well-being of black men in a culture of institutional profiling.”
Keith speaks with Maxamoo’s host Lindsay Barenz about his path to becoming a playwright, the story behind FACING OUR TRUTH and HANDS UP, and his secret to balancing the demands of writing, producing, and staying current on popular culture.
Note: We recorded this episode on Saturday, November 22, prior to the announcement that the grand jury did not indict police officer Darren Wilson for shooting and killing Michael Brown.
Find us all on Twitter: Maxamoo, Lindsay, and Keith Josef Adkins.
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