KEITH JOSEF ADKINS
presents

TELLING TALES - 3 DAYS OF PLAYS

Location: PRODUCER'S CLUB - ROYAL THEATER
358 WEST 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, NY
When: Thursday, March 29 thru Saturday March 31, 8:00pm

Thursday, March 29 -- THE PATRON SAINT OF PEANUTS [reading]
directed by Keith Josef Adkins
featuring Sam Gates, Alex Alioto, Kim Sykes, Frank Harts, Jenne Vath, Sturgis Warner and Spencer Barros

George Washington Carver was a world-reknown botanist. But little is known about Carver's turbulent beginnings, his life as a painter, and his on-again off-again love affair with the infamous Tuskegee University.

Friday, March 30 -- THE GLOBAL WARMING PLAYS [stagings]
directed by Kaipo Schwab, Tony Glazer and Keith Josef Adkins
featuring April Yvette Thompson, Ron Simons, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Bob Lavelle, Warner Miller, Jenne Vath and Kaipo Schwab.

The Global Warming Plays feature three short one acts that comically and/or seriously explore glacier melts, the extinction of Alaskan Spruce Trees, and the arrival of the 2012 Winter Solstice.

Saturday, March 31 -- SALT ON SUGAR HILL [reading]
directed by Liesl Tommy
featuring Nathan Hinton, John Douglas Thompson, April Yvette Thompson and Benton Greene

Dexter lives a simple life as a community doctor in Harlem, but when his father's moneyed interests become dangerously immoral, Dexter must decide to remain loyal to his family or finally face his families' dark past.

All events begin at 8 pm.
All events are free, but I'm accepting $10 donations.
And there will be no reservations. So get there on time. [No late seating]

Late Night Lounging in the Bastille.









Dancing in Paris on New Year's Eve.

You know what's interesting?

When you work very hard at self-value and self-driven accomplishment; when you do everything in your daily power to overcome doubt and self-imposed fear; when you realize that your very soul, your very earthly presence relies on how far you step into your light and sincerely realize you belong there, and then, a bolt of vicious lightening from what looked like a friendly cloud comes crashing down to split you in half, hoping to scatter your valued pieces among the ruins of unsatisfied lives.

I'm talking about other people's attempt to shoot you down off of your well-earned cloud. How they literally laugh at your pursuits; fold their arms in defense when you speak your name out-loud. How, for whatever calculated reason, they rather pull apart every vertebrae and artery that encases your soul.

In my lifetime, I've embraced many who fit this profile. The kind of person who you meet, and instinctively you feel compromised by them, daggers even, but you brefriend them anyway because you're lonely, or conditioned in a culture to accept insanity as institution. Or maybe, you're a sucker for charm. Or you've dedicated your life to finding pure friendship, that in your heart, you know it exists somewhere deep, and maybe even in them. Or you hope it's just a phase they're going through—the viciousness—and they don't really mean to show happy teeth but cruel eyes when you tell them you've just sold a screenplay, or commissioned to write a stage play, or that you're just happy.

You know what's interesting?

When you tally up enough self-worth to sincerely realize those people are in your way. And the light that you so deserve to step into, has been darkened by their conditional friendship. And you realize you don't have the time anymore to dance in half-light just to keep them happy in the dark. That you finally have yourself, and that true friendship doesn't feel so... conditional.

Oh yeh, thank the Stars for YOU.

By the way, check out this new group I discovered. Tresspassers William. They move me.

Until next time,

Keith

Woodlawn, Ohio.

I grew up in Woodlawn. Contrary to unpopular belief, it is not a city. It is not a town. It's a village. Nestled deep in the forest on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Locust trees, Maple trees, Crabapple and Walnut, all dot the hilly terrain from the lake on its western edge to the railroad tracks to the east, to the wide sweep of cow pasture that now shares its acreage with a Kroger strip mall and a clunk of condominums simply called The Commons.

Most of the people there are working class. Truckers, factory workers, car salesmen, school teachers, ministers, supervising cashiers, and lots and lots of children. Rough-kneed children who's idea of play is tipping cows, catching lightening bugs and terrorizing other children who, for an example, earned an A on their spelling test.

On cold days, Woodlawn exists in this perputual gloom. Gray skies hover above snow-laden streets, polluted by bright yellow dog urine and black ice from somebody's Oldsmobile. The trees are without the plume of their leaves and the dry bark of the Maples shiver in the air. Small birds of every kind bounce from limb to limb—a dance of frostbite maybe, one can never be sure. Sometimes your mother will warm up some milk on the stove and tease you away from the window with the thrill of hot chocolate in a mug. And more often than not, a snow storm will dump inch upon inch and you and your mother worry a little about your father somewhere on a highway, delivering frozen foods, from a Kroger truck.

On warm days, Woodlawn spins in greens and reds and Robin egg blues. The sky is so clear and the air so clean, even the mailman is whistling. If you're lucky, your bike survived winter's rust and you pop a wheelie three or four times up and down your culdesac as others watch in envy. And even though on the fifth wheelie you fall backwards and cut a hole on your hand, well... that's okay. Because the baseball game is in an hour, and though you're probably the worst player on the team, all is good once the team treks it over to Dairy Queen for vanilla ice cream on waffer cones.

Woodlawn, Ohio. Where parents divorce and children graduate in the top twenty percent of their class. Where the Army recruits some of Ohio's most promising no-nonsense boys ever. Where girls leave their mother's backporches and travel to Atlanta and become pediatricians and wives, or lesbians. Where on some nights you can smell the sweet stench from the whiskey distillery two miles away and your mother closes all of the windows because she says the smell makes her sick, and your father comes home from his 14-hour day and you all sit down for a Sloppy Joe dinner, and talk about laying down tar on the driveway, a note from school about someone talking too much, and whether Saturday should be spent cutting the hedges. And even now, thirty years later, hundreds of miles away, you remember the gloom and the spin of Woodlawn and you smile. You smile wide.

Until next time,

Keith

Last night I saw LIFE SUPPORT featuring Queen Latifah and Wendell Pierce. Wow. I kept repeating to myself: this is good. this is so real. she [Latifah] is so good.

Life Support centers around a HIV-positive woman struggling to rebalance her new inspired life and the drug life she's left behind. It's difficult for her because she's hurt so many people during her drug years, and they're having a hard time forgiving her [particularly her teen daughter] for the betrayal and abandonment.

This film touched me in so many ways: specifcially my own experience with a formerly-addicted sibling.

The performances were understated and full of breath and just plain good. Nelson George did an amazing job directing this film. In my opinion, this film deserves much praise, and it certainly establishes Queen Latifah as a true artist. She delivers.

Until next time,

Keith

It's Saturday. Cloudy. With an expected temperature of 50. Anything's better than last weekend: when it was 60 on Saturday afternoon and 9 degrees Monday night. Anything, ANYTHING is better than that lunacy. I need consistency. But wait a minute, hold my horses! With all of the chaos in the world, haven't I been learning that you can't expect consistency from politics, weather, hell, OTHER PEOPLE, ever. That the only consistency I can truly rely on is my own. That the focus should always be on balancing moi. And if the other elements within the universe decide to show some consistency within their own circle of reality... good for those elements! Hallelujah, amen.

Yes, I'm feeling... good. Relaxed. I completed another short play last night for my upcoming theater festival—and the actor read it and was very satisfied. I've got to say, I'm feeling prolific. Productive. Now don't let me get too cocky. I have another short play to finish, a short story to write, and a whole lot of films to watch in prep for this screenplay I'm about to embark on. I'll leave the cocky alone until I successfully [and not sloppily] complete those tasks. For now, I'll settle for... enthusiastic. I"m enthusiastic about my day to day. Yeh, I like that.

By the way: Check out this new artist I've been digging. SKYE [formerly of Morcheeba]. She moves me.

Until next time,

Keith

What a week!

After finally completing a major writing deadline for the Alliance Theater, and completing a substational rewrite of another new play and reading it at the Public Theater yesterday afternoon, I'm feeling good and revived and EXHAUSTED.

But I have no complaints. I actually treated myself to a glass of 2002 Tulocay Pinot Noir and a full hour of Heroes. It was well-earned.

Now I'm ready to organize my KEITH JOSEF ADKINS' theater festival. Scheduled March 29, 30 and 31. Yes, yours truly will be presenting the works of yours truly for three great nights in New York City. Stay tuned for further details.

Until next time,

Keith