'Our Young Black Men Are Dying'

As one of the highlights of Skidmore's observance of Black History Month 2008, James H. Chapmyn's 1990 Off-Broadway hit Our Young Black Men Are Dying and No One Seems to Care, will be performed at Bernhard Theater at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22. The 60-minute dramatic revue will be presented by Chapmyn Spoken Word, the theater company founded by the playwright in 1988 as an entry point to discussion and understanding. A brief discussion with the production's two actors will follow the performance.

In conjunction with the play, an earlier panel discussion titled "Blues in Black & White: The Presence of Past Oppressions," on Wednesday, Feb. 20, was designed to explore the play's themes of race, love, power, and relationships through the lens of two earlier classic plays that plumb the African-American experience: James Baldwin's 1964 Blues for Mr. Charlie and Ntozake Shange's 1975 For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf. Both plays inspired and influenced Chapmyn's Our Young Black Men.

The play is a series of vignettes that tell the stories of its young black protagonists and encourage audiences to consider those stories as catalysts for community dialogue and meaningful action. Among the topics dramatized are the need for education in African-American history, personal responsibility, police brutality, gun violence, the rap-music sensibility, the hope of building personal strength and caring relationships, and the painful issue of the culpability of some young black men in their own destruction, with crack cocaine, HIV-AIDS, and urban crime.

The Skidmore production of Our Young Black Men Are Dying is collaboratively presented by the student cultural-awareness club, Ujima; the Intercultural and Global Understanding Task Force; the Office of Student Diversity Programs; the Higher Education Opportunity Program; and the Academic Opportunity Program.

For more information, call 580-8212.