Tag Archives: Ray Lockhart

M Ensemble Again Does Justice To Wilson’s Two Trains Running

Langston Hughes wrote of “a dream deferred” from the elevated promontory of poetry; but the great playwright August Wilson wrote from the street what it was like living through a dream being deferred. And once again, M Ensemble captures the very essence of an era in Wilson’s Two Trains Running, honored by a cast inhabiting the vibrant array of residents and deftly orchestrated direction.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Preach: Praise For Return Of M Ensemble’s God’s Trombones

For those assigned to commit James Weldon Johnson’s narratives to memory in their younger days, M Ensemble’s God’s Trombones will wrap them in warm nostalgia. For others, M Ensemble skillful interpretation should elicit praise for introducing, and keeping, this important treasure of cultural history in the public eye.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Lost And Adrift In The ‘Hood: The Mighty Gents At AHCAC

The Mighty Gents is a poignant moving tale worthy of a Greek tragedy except that the protagonists are members of a street gang from the mid-1960s, emotionally, economically and sociologically lost in a Newark ghetto in 1978.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

M Ensemble Scores With Stirring Saga Of Race, Pride & Basketball In ‘The Kings of Harlem’

Music, sometimes tenderly introspective, sometimes upliftingly powerful, is deftly woven throughout the surging triumph of both the rise of the all-black 1939 New York Renaissance basketball team and M Ensemble’s moving recreation of the “Rens” banner year in Layon Gray’s Kings of Harlem.

Posted in Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Volcanic Ethan Henry Erupts In M Ensemble’s The Piano Lesson

Imagine white water rapids raging past you; now imagine the liquid is molten lava – a heedless force of nature threatening to destroy everything. Such images are the by-product of watching the incomparable Ethan Henry bringing one of August Wilson’s tragic heroes to three-dimensional life in M Ensemble’s The Piano Lesson.

Posted in General, Performances, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment