The idea for the Sankofa Theatre Festival sprang from conversations in a Village Gate bookstore about a lack of Black representation in local theater.  Now in its 15th year, the multi-day event — which runs from August 20 through 25 at MuCCC — celebrates Black playwrights creating new works.

Curtis K. Rivers, artistic director of Sankofa Theatre Festival and former owner of the now-defunct Mood Makers Books where that first conversation took place, recalls talking to aspiring playwrights who shared the struggle to get plays produced.

Rivers decided the way to solve the problem was to start their own theatrical enterprise; something that would bolster Black playwrights, actors and directors in their work.

“The big thing was to get African American playwrights noticed,” said Rivers.

“It increases the sense of community,” said Sankofa director Reuben J. Tapp. “You start to see a number of similar people that you may not have seen initially. So that allows for that sense of place to resonate even more so.”

Sankofa has always focused primarily on one act plays by artists from the upstate New York region. Full-length feature works are also presented, as in the case of “Incorrigible,” Karen D. Culley’s play about the school-to-prison pipeline, which runs on Friday, Aug. 23 and Saturday, Aug. 24 at 7:30 p.m. and will also include a post-play talkback.



While the festival's plays don’t feature a shared theme, they do reflect a similar approach to storytelling. The weeklong celebration of new plays gets its name from a Twi word used by the Akan people of Ghana: “Sankofa” essentially means “go back and get it,” and is represented by the image of a bird turning back to retrieve an egg from its back.

“You look back to the past in order to look forward to the future,” Rivers said. “So some of the plays that have been done talk about the past, some talk about the future.”

This year’s play roster includes works by Vickie Hampton, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Rudy Valentino and Richard Wesley, as well as “Young, Gifted and Black,” a youth staged reading in tribute to the late playwright Lorraine Hansberry, directed by Reenah Golden, who is also the founder and artistic director of The Avenue BlackBox Theatre.

“It’s an opportunity to introduce audiences to classic works in Black theater,” Golden said, “as well as new plays in Black theater, like we did with “Blood at the Root,” which was written by Dominique Morisseau, and was a very pertinent and timely piece that may have never been seen in Rochester.”

Golden added that local artists don’t always have access to the theater spaces needed to produce their plays.

“If Sankofa didn’t exist, I don’t think that there would be opportunities,” she said. “Especially for a lot of Black local playwrights to hear their words out loud on stages, and also for audiences to experience their work.”

For tickets and more information about Sankofa Theatre Festival, visit the website.

Daniel J. Kushner is an arts writer at CITY. He can be reached at [email protected].