American Stage plans events for Black History Month

American Stage’s production of Jocelyn Bioh’s School Girls – or, the African Mean Girls Play began its three-week run Wednesday. The dramedy features Broadway and film veterans Phyllis Yvonne Stickney and Jennifer Leigh Warren, as the lone “adults” around students at a girls’ boarding school in Ghana, West Africa.

Here’s a recent Catalyst interview with Warren.

It’s no accident that School Girls is being produced during Black History Month, as between its laughs, tears and thrills there are themes of racial divides – notably, the issue of colorism, as the young ladies look forward to the upcoming Miss Ghana pageant. Who might win? The new light-skinned student who’s half American, or her darker-skinned African counterparts?

The theater has put together a list of special events tied into School Girls, and into Black History Month, called Speak the Dream: A Legacy of Lessons and Blessings:

Before the Show: Free for ticket holders, 30 minutes prior to select performances Feb. 5, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26 and 27. A pre-performance exploration of the play, its themes and its creative team.

Beyond the Footlights: Free for ticket-holders, 30 minutes prior to select performances February 6, 10, 17 and 24. Producing Artistic Director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj is joined by guest panelists from the St. Pete community for a conversation “exploring and reflecting on the themes, connections, and ideas that ignite us.”

Why We Tell the Story: Maharaj, Stickney, Warren and thestudio@620 founder Bob Devin Jones in conversation 6-9 p.m. Feb. 7. Admission is free for this wide-ranging discussion at thestudio@620 (reception from 6 to 7 p.m.).

Reading of Katori Hall’s The Mountaintop: 7-9 p.m. Feb. 15 at Today’s Church Tampa Bay, 2114 54th Ave N., St. Pete. Admission is free to this poetic re-imagining of Martin Luther King Jr.’s final hours at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, April 4, 1968.

One Night Only with Phyllis Yvonne Stickney: 7-9 p.m. Feb. 21 in the American Stage lobby cabaret. The School Girls star, who appeared in Malcom X, Die Hard With a Vengeance, How Stella Got Her Groove Back and others in a program of “conscious comedy, spoken word … with a splash of music and song.” Tickets are $30.

Never Stop Talking It: The premiere of Maharaj’s play Rise: An African American Word Quilt, inspired by August Wilson’s The Ground on Which I Stand, Rise: An African American Word Quilt, in the lobby cabaret, 7-9 p.m. Feb. 28. Free.

Reservations, event tickets and additional information on Speak the Dream here.