NATIVE SON...

For the last couple of months, my life has been CONSUMED by "Native Son", directed by my big brudda Amen Igbinosun...."Native Son" is my theatre debut at Fordham and I am sooooo freaking ecstatic that I was able to be apart of it!! I love my cast...they are all just so freaking TALENTED!! and OMG even though we be in rehearsal from 4:00 in the afternoon until 2:00 the next morning, we still find the bright sight of things and end up acting a damn FOOL and having the time of our lives...it just sucks that it will be over all too soon...(we premiere TOMORROW til sunday)

 But, that is the nature of the theatre I guess...You're together for all of these weeks and months on end...you become a family, and then all of a sudden it's over. back to reality. You may or may not see any of these people who you have created a so called "family" with again...and if you do, it's never the same. The bond that is created can NEVER be duplicated. Maybe that is why theatre stresses living in the moment so much...maybe it's because the moment is all you have....because when it is all said and done and you've taken your bow, received your audience and the lights go down and the set is torn to pieces you essentially have nothing left....nothing physical anyway...The magic of theatre is that it can only live on in our minds and in our hearts...it is our job as the actors to get it there....it is the audience's job to keep it there.

There is this one guy. Rodney. Rodney Mann...or should I say Bigger?? Bigger Thomas, the native son himself...the young man whom this entire play is about. He is the TRUTH. Rodney really surprised me with his passionate portrayal of the very troubled Bigger Thomas. I am literally blown away EVERY NIGHT that he performs. You can tell that this man has truly submitted himself to his character because when he is on stage I can see no one but Bigger Thomas....Rodney Mann ain't no where to be found. It is amazing. Rodney is a novice actor but he most definitely has the potential and the raw talent to go really far with his acting....I am just beyond impressed, and I am glad that I got to witness his progression and...I am a fan. ♥

But yeah...Native Son has truly been an experience for me...Sometimes I feel as if I am going to get permanent wrinkles in my face because of all the crying I do. My body aches, my feet are sore, my eyes have bags under them, and my voice is shot. But i LOVE it. every minute of it. 

Come see it: Friday, March 6-7 at 8pm and March 8 at 3pm in Collins Auditorium

"There was something he KNEW and something he FELT; something the world gave him and something he himself had...Never in all his life, with this BLACK skin of his, had the TWO worlds, THOUGHT and FEELING, WILL and MIND, ASPIRATION and SATISFACTION been together; never had he felt a sense of WHOLENESS."

-Richard Wright ("Native Son")

fabulously,

                     Akilah ♥