Campus News
English Prof's Play Praised by New York Times
by Greta Petry (June 22, 2006)
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Lisa Thompson |
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According a theater review in the June 20 New York Times, Lisa Thompson's play "Single Black Female" is "socially significant and very entertaining." Thompson, an assistant professor of English at UAlbany who is on leave, earned a Ph.D. in modern thought in literature from Stanford.
Her two-woman play, starring Soara-Joye Ross and Riddick Marie, is premiering in New York at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater, 416 W. 42nd St., and Clinton, and continues through June 25. The two actresses play multiple characters that highlight the "imperfect lives of educated, middle-class, single African-American women," noted the review.
According to the English department Web site, "Single Black Female" was staged at several venues in California prior to coming to New York. The play, which "debuted at Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco in March 1999, is a two-woman show with rapid-fire comic vignettes that explore the lives of 30-something African-American middle class women in urban America as they search for love, clothes, and dignity in a world that fails to recognize them among a parade of stereotypical images."
The Times review by Anita Gates is headlined Brainy Black Women, Still Looking for Love, in 'Single Black Female.' Gates concludes, "As the play points out, so many women have chosen to better themselves by going to college and building great careers, 'and Tiger Woods marries a nanny.' "
