It’s not every day that Claire and Janae’s mother comes to visit.

It’s impossible to tell the whole story of the blues in a little over two hours. But the Crossroads Theatre Company of New Brunswick, N.J., gives us a substantial crash course in It Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues.

The acclaimed play The Sty of the Blind Pig by Phillip Hayes Dean was cited by Time magazine as one of the 10 best plays of 1971.

Black hair is expression—whether in Jheri curls, cornrows or blown-out Afros. At least that’s the case in the show Nappy Journeys.

Perri Gaffney and Stephanie Berry take us through amazing life stories that are by turns humorous and harrowing in a pair of dazzling one-woman performances.

Halley’s Comet got an earful last night, and thankfully, we got to eavesdrop on the many wise, moving, curmudgeonly and funny things that a virtuoso actor told it.

The play Ascension is a dark tale about the evils of slavery. But it is also a story of love overcoming the chains that bind it.

Teddy Pendergrass did more than sing R&B as well as anyone. He seduced every woman in the audience with renditions of such tunes as “Close the Door” and “Turn Off the Lights.”

By 1961, Paris was not so gay for Josephine Baker.

The French still loved her, as they had since 1928, when she first wowed them with her risque song-and-dance cabaret act.

Poet Kwame Dawes provided the words for HOPE & Wisteria, two back-to-back performance pieces that explore different aspects of the black experience. But his contribution, vital as it is, is only one part of the puzzle. Each production is a multimedia piece using music, images and Dawes’ poetry.