What's Inside?
Full Catalogue
Explore our selection of over 40 uniquely Black stories, vividly performed and expertly crafted.
Backstage
Get a deeper dive into the history and making of some of your favorite stories.
Interviews with Icons
Hear directly from some of the most influential talents in Black culture.
Listen Magazine
Enjoy a monthly magazine that contains sneak peeks, insightful information, and other tidbits.
Special Offering!
The need to share and spread our stories has never been stronger. In creative response to the recent political landscape, as well as a celebration of Black History Month every month, MPAACT is very proud to provide free access to select titles of our acclaimed Podcast Play catalogue. From now until the end of March, please enjoy unlimited listens to these handpicked, hard-hitting titles.
Listen. Engage. Respond.
-MPAACT
Feral
Young black activist known as FX has been waging a politically-motivated graffiti campaign, spraying the word “FERAL” on the sides of buildings all over the city. In the heat of a late July night, FX is caught in a moment of violence with the local police. The resulting controversy engulfs the city and the country, but will all this commotion overshadow the complex ideas FX hoped to communicate?
Project Uplift: Volume 1
A stellar company of voices bring to life a collection of moments that will forever define a generation. A “two-week exercise” to “keep sane” has exploded into a year-long chronicle of our time. Project Uplift follows a realtime, day to day poetic account of the global pandemic- through the lense of a Black Man in America.
Pulled Punches
On an express train home to watch Scandal, Isis gets all the elements of her favorite show – drama, passion and heart-stopping suspense when she collides into a professor who dares to swirl into her orbit and take her breath away. A heady mix of Baraka’s Dutchman and the mythos of Isis and the Seven Scorpions, PULLED PUNCHES investigates “identity politics” in the age of being “woke” and well-intentioned. How long should we pull punches before we let them fly?
Icons - Ron OJ Parson
Ron OJ Parson hit Chicago in the late 80’s looking for new opportunities. Always a restless performer, in Chicago Ron would diversify his craft, becoming a producer, director, and theater founder. Over the next 4 decades, Ron forged a legacy of partnership with August Wilson, and Court Theater (among others) that made him one of the most celebrated directors of the August Wilson cycle. Join us for a candid talk about Ron’s life and his art.
First Monday Releases
Visual artist Soraya Sheppard Bowen is welcomed to Icons by her daughter Nadia Pillay. Together they delve into Soraya’s childhood in Apartheid era South Africa, and Soraya’s many adventures in her journey of self-discovery as a mother, visual artist, and arts advocate.
Does innocence exist anymore? If it does exist – when is innocence lost? In Gabriel’s Threshold, two college students are navigating the uncertain ground of their mutual attraction.
In one night, an act of violence upends their understanding of the world, and their understanding of each other. The threshold to their home has been breached. The threshold into their souls, has likewise been crossed. The question of what happens on the other side of that breach – that is a turning point for them both.
Join the cast of Gabriel’s Threshold as they come together to discuss a world of innocence lost. Captured “in studio” immediately following the recording of the play, these artists speak to the immediacy of the play, the immediacy of their craft, and the immediacy of the emotions that Gabriel’s Threshold engenders.
Returning to Our Roots
From the time of our ancestors, our story and our history has been told orally. The Griot in our villages kept and told the oral history of our people, and passed it down to the next generations. More recently, our transplanted elders gathered the family around the victrola radio in the living room and listened to the news and stories of the world, as well as weekend episodes of the family’s favorite radio serials.
Birthed during the global pandemic which shuttered our theatre doors for a year, we took heart in the ability to return to our elders’ tradition. MPAACT invites you to stream our Podcast Play Series- radio plays presented for your enjoyment. Gather around with family and enjoy dynamically Black stories presented comfortably in your home.
Who We Are
MPAACT exists to develop, nurture, and sustain Afrikan Centered Theatre [ACT], an artistic expression grounded in the many cultures and traditions of the Afrikan continent and its Diaspora. With a vision focused on creating new work and collaborative art, MPAACT produces and educates with the goal of increasing understanding and appreciation of [ACT] and its interrelated disciplines.
MPAACT has grown from a collective of like-minded individuals who shared an artistic vision, to an organization that has produced a formidable body of work. This work includes: main stage productions, a playwright’s laboratory, standing productions, original music, a publishing company [Sakhu Publications], an arts education program, and many workshops and master classes.
It is important to us as a company that we, in everything we do, pull from the disparate cultural elements which unite artists in the Afrikan Diaspora. Drawing from the well that nourished artists such as Wole Soyinka, Charles Mingus, Adrienne Kennedy, Amiri Baraka and Bob Marley among others, we create and perform work, which examines and celebrates the many facets of Afrikan theatre.
Want to learn more? Visit our official website mpaact.org!
Contact
Greenhouse Theatre Center
2257 N Lincoln Ave
Chicago, IL 60614
information@mpaact.org
661.373.3089
Mail: P.O. Box 10039
Chicago IL, 60610