The Illinois State University School of Theatre and Dance and Crossroads Project will host award-winning actor and playwright, Eisa Davis, niece to civil rights activist Angela Davis, for a playwriting workshop and colloquium featuring a performance of material from her critically acclaimed play, Angela’s Mixtape.
Eisa Davis will perform excerpts from Angela’s Mixtape in a colloquium at 1 p.m. Friday, January 22, in Illinois State’s Center for the Performing Arts Theatre. At 11 a.m. Thursday, January 21, she will present a playwriting workshop in Centennial West, room 214. Both events are free and open to the public.
Eisa Davis won an OBIE Award in 2013 for sustained excellence in theatre. She was in the original Broadway cast of Passing Strange, and plays Cynthia Driscoll on House of Cards. Her autobiographical play, Angela’s Mixtape, allows audiences a window into her experience growing up as the niece of famed civil rights activist, Angela Davis. Eisa plays herself in the play, named one of the best theatrical events of the year by The New Yorker (2009).
These events are presented concurrent to a residency by Angela Davis who will be the keynote speaker at Illinois State’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Dinner, at 6 p.m. Friday, January 22, in the University’s Brown Ballroom. That dinner is sold out.
