Shades of Black Theatre Festival came together in 2006 when Shawn Whitsell was apart of a theatre company called Dream 7 Productions. They booked the Darkhorse Theater at the same time as production company Sista Style and Robin’s Nest, which were all owned and operated by black artists. They thought it was a unique coincidence and decided that they were going to help each other promote each other’s shows. That idea grew into some events and workshops and eventually turned into a festival. Its purpose is to provide an outlet to uplift the voices of Black artists.
“If you look throughout our society, you can find disparities everywhere,” Whitsell said. “In the theater space and art space, we want to make sure we do our part to fill that gap. It’s not an exclusive festival by any means. We have had white actors or non-black actors and directors, and even playwrights. One of the shows that I’m doing is ‘Buffalo Soldier’ written by a white playwright. We make space for anybody of any ethnicity, but we do put emphasis on Black voices. For every show, there has to be a Black director, or a playwright, or Black lead. It’s important because there are other spaces where those voices aren’t as prominent or have been muted in some way historically and today. We’re just doing our part to make sure those voices are lifted up.”
“I have a theater company called Destiny Theater Experience. We’re one of the hosting companies for the festival. Shades Of Black is just that one month in the year, but I’m constantly doing work with my theater company. We travel and we do shows here in Nashville. Just me as an independent artist beyond my theater company, I work with a lot of companies throughout the city and beyond as a director or playwright, and an actor. I’m pretty active and I try to pull people in into my projects trying to keep them paid and active. I feel like that’s part of my mission personally is to continue to uplift other voices, provide opportunities for other people, and give back to the community in any way that I can,” said Whitsell.
Additional event opportunities in the next week:
Thursday night (Sep 4), Backyard Sessions curated by WNXP is at the Bobby Hotel rooftop lounge with Mon Rovîa and Jarren Blair. Also on Thursday, Spacey Jane performs at Brooklyn Bowl and Caamp takes the stage at Ascend. Friday night (Sep 5) Nashville artist Nickname Jos performs at Cannery Hall’s Row One Stage.
Saturday night (Sep 6) Nine Inch Nails is at Bridgestone Arena and Sunday night (Sep 7) Durand Bernarr performs at Brooklyn Bowl. Back at Bridgestone Monday night (Sep 8), Eric Clapton performs and Yuno is at DRKMTTR. We wrap up this week’s listings Tuesday night (Sep 9) as WNXP Presents Frankie Cosmos at the Blue Room.
