Blair Underwood & Nicole Ari Parker in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE on Broadway

This season, desire is taking on a whole new rhythm as the greatest play  from America’s most celebrated playwright sizzles onto the stage at The Broadhurst Theatre. From the producers of the trailblazing 2008 Broadway production of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, starring James Earl Jones and Terrence Howard, comes a hot new take on Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, A Streetcar Named Desire. Leading this sizzling new cast is Blair Underwood (L.A. Law) in his Broadway debut as Stanley Kowalski, Nicole Ari Parker (Soul Food) as Blanche DuBois, Daphne Rubin-Vega (Rent) as Stella Kowalski and Wood Harris (The Wire) as Mitch. Directed by Emily Mann (Artistic Director of Princeton’s esteemed McCarter Theatre) and featuring an original score by five-time Grammy Award® winner Terence Blanchard, this scintillating Streetcar brings a whole new rhythm to Williams’ enduring portrait of sex, class and secrets in one of America’s most fascinating and diverse cities. Come and feel the heat.  Broadhurst Theatre, 235 West 44th Street, NYC. Performance ScheduleTues 7pm, Wed 2 & 8pm, Thurs 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2 & 8pm, Sun 3pm Week ending July 8: Mon 7pm, Tues 7pm, Wed-Dark-July 4th, Thurs 7pm, Fri 8pm, Sat 2 & 8pm Sun 2 & 8pm BUY NOW and SAVE OVER 35%* Front Orchestra & Front Mezzanine $79.50 to $89.50* Rear Orchestra & Middle Mezzanine $69.50* Rear Mezzanine $49.50* *Offer valid on select performances and seat locations. Restrictions may apply. Visit BroadwayOffers.com mention code: ASFLY79 or call 212 947-8844 For groups pf 10 or more, call Toni, 718 703-2260

CONTROVERSIAL STREETCAR/ Nicole and Blair on MSNBC

With regard to the "Nay Sayers," like the New Yorker theater critic, John Lahr, that asked Santa Clause, last Christmas, to bring him no more "Infernal all black cast productions of Tennessee Williams' plays, unless he can have his equal in 'FOLLY'; an all white production of an August Wilson play!" "FOLLY," really?!  

We have been having such an AMAZING run, playing to full houses, standing ovations EVERY night, since the very first preview. Our run on Broadway was just extended another month until August 19th and all systems are go for us to take the production to London in Oct. Though 90 % of the reviews have been positive...(we are, after all critiquing an art form and everyone is entitled to their own opinions), it is the commentaries from the likes of John Lahr (theater critic for The New Yorker magazine) and racist rants from NY Times critic Ben Brantley masquerading as a "review," where you realize that they are not even remotely interested in reviewing or critiquing the work and/or artistry upon the stage. The so-called guardian Elite of the New York theater world, would rather take a position of condescension and dismissal when  people of color have the "audacity" to take on the extraordinary, beautiful work of Tennessee Williams. Once you know your history and know that there was indeed a culture of people (in the 1700s), endemic to Louisiana called the "gens de colour libre," or "free people of color," and that these people owned plantations and some actually owned their own slaves, there is no basis to dismiss the backstory of our Dubois sisters who hail from their family owned plantation called Belle Reeve. Or to dismiss the part of the story where Blanche Dubois pines for an oil millionaire called Shep Huntleigh. If these dismissive Nay Sayers knew their history, they would know that there were a number of black people that owned oil wells in the 30s and 40s:

These are three actual black millionaires in the deep south of the 1930s and 40s that serve as prototypes for Shep Huntleigh.

William Madison McDonald 

Gooseneck Bill McDonald moved to Fort Worth in 1906.  He built the Fraternal Bank and Trust Company in 1912.  The bank was located at 401 E. Ninth Street. The bank was successful and survived the Great Depression. The bank provided loans to African American entrepreneurs during the segregated era.

According to a 1984 Fort Worth Star Telegram story, Mc Donald was “Ft. Worth’s first black millionaire”. He lived in a 12 room mansion on Terrell Avenue  His home “rivaled any in Fort Worth at the time.”

Joseph Jacob Simmons

Joseph Jacob Simmons, Jr. (January 17, 1901 – March 24, 1981) was a prominent African American oilman. He "rose above humble beginnings to become the most successful and most recognizable black entrepreneur in the history of the petroleum industry."

As an internationally known oil broker he partnered with Phillips Petroleum Company and Signal Oil and Gas Company to open up African oil fields in Liberia, Nigeria and Ghana. In 1969, he became the first black to be appointed to the National Petroleum Council

The headline from this conversation is: BLACK FOLKS, STAY IN YOUR PLACE!

As long as we stay in our place and do only the great "Black" classics, like "Fences," "Porgy and Bess," "A Raisin In The Son,"  etc. your artistry will be lauded and touted, (as it should be), but if you dare step into the deified realm of Tennessee Williams, expect profound resistance and resentment. This is evident not only in our production but in "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof," produced by the same producers; Stephen Byrd and Alia Jones in 2008 with an all-black cast. Incidentally, with the same dismissive climate, "Cat" prevailed and became the highest grossing "play" (not musical) of the year!

I saw the production and the work was stellar.

"Cat boasted three previous Tony Award "winners;" James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad and Anika Noni Rose, but the reviews were blistering and the entire company, cast and crew were completely ignored and shut out of a single Tony nomination, the highest honor in the world of Broadway. Ironically, so were we, save a deserved Tony nomination for Paul Tazewell's costumes. Though the costumes are terrific, are you telling me that when you come to see our play the ONLY thing you are left with is how amazing the costumes are? dismissal and condescension.

Once again, you realize that the "resistance" and "resentment" is not based on the work. We are not being judged based on the work. It is the "power of the idea," that seems to unnerve the "elite;" the idea that people of color could produce and perform Tennessee Williams and do it well. The beauty in all of this is that when an ideas time has come it cannot and will not be ignored!

Nicole and I decided to make a concerted effort to expose John Lahr and other's ignorance with regard to people of color doing Tennessee Williams. We did an interview on MSNBC on Thursday with the brilliant Michael Eric Dyson. The response and buzz has been phenomenal. Feel free to send the video viral if you like. Thanks much.

Blair

Check out the link below:
http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/a-streetcar-named-desire-reborn-with-blair-underwood/6smlw5d?from=

In NBC Interview, Bush Calls Kanye's On-Air Insult Worst Moment of Presidency

By Nate Freeman

In anticipation of the Nov. 9 release of his memoir Decision Points, George W. Bush will sit down with Matt Lauer for a prime-time news special this Monday to talk over the experiences relayed in the book. In the excerpts released yesterday in a press release, the NBC anchor grilled the ex-head of state on the memoir's key moments — namely 9/11, the Iraq War, Hurricane Katrina, etc.

But which of these events — all of them defining disasters of this millennium — does Bush consider the worst moment of his presidency? None, actually! It seems Bush is the latest victim of the cutting disses Kanye West can sneak into his nimble, dexterous flow. The offending quip, of course, was West's assertion, on an NBC Katrina telethon, that "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Bush admits that 'Ye burned him hard.

MATT LAUER:
This from the book. “Five years later I can barely write those words without feeling disgust.” You go on. “I faced a lot of criticism as President. I didn’t like hearing people claim that I lied about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or cut taxes to benefit the rich. But the suggestion that I was racist because of the response to Katrina represented an all time low.”

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH:
Yeah. I still feel that way as you read those words. I felt ‘em when I heard ‘em, felt ‘em when I wrote ‘em and I felt ‘em when I’m listening to ‘em.

Kanye has dealt with the haters before — diss tracks from the Dipset crew, Barack Obama calling him a "jackass" after he interrupted Taylor Swift — but nothing compared to the president calling his insult the lowest point of an eight-year tenure in the Oval Office. What's beef, W.?