By Judy O’Gorman Alvarez
RED BANK – The creators of Black Fox Productions invite the community to Lounge Night of Theater, a night of live outdoor music, poetry and theater from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Aug. 13-14, at the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center.
Motivated by George Floyd’s killing in 2020 and the fallout, Patrick Monaghan of Little Silver, an actor and artist, teamed up with with Joshua Milo Cox, who grew up in Red Bank and Neptune, to form Black Fox Productions. The duo wanted to find a creative way to bring the community together to engage with performance art and to stimulate conversation about the issues affecting people of color.
“I had suggested that we do a night of theater, because for me, theater is one of the most involving and inclusive” mediums, said Cox, the director.
Produced in partnership with the Greater Red Bank NAACP and the NJ Social Justice Remembrance Coalition, the Lounge Night of Theater will feature new works by BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color) artists bringing attention to combating systemic racism and advocating for social justice.
The two nights will include neo-soul music from John Payne, Travis Clyburn, Ben Napoleon and Zal Walton Jr. and poetry by nationally recognized and published poet Jay Délise. The main attraction is a short play entitled, “Blackface,” by Mya Alexice, a nationally recognized writer. The cast includes Eric Clinton, Sarai Quinice, Kenon Veno and Ronald Hinton.
A Black Fox Productions release describes the original work “Blackface” as a look at the potential future in the handling of police brutality and unarmed shootings and the ranging viewpoints of the family tasked with implementing the controversial solution.
“We wanted to showcase writers of color and artists of color in our production,” said Monaghan, stage manager. Among the interested artists was Alexice. “We chose ‘Blackface’ as the one that we that we felt hit very angle of the night that we wanted to talk about.”
Monaghan and Alexice, coincidentally, went to Red Bank Regional together. “I remember Mya from high school as being a phenomenal writer,” he said. Poet Jay Délise is also a Red Bank Regional alum.
“We found that we wanted to start a conversation in this community and the conversation starters were from this community,” he said.
Another coincidence was that both Monaghan and Cox were familiar with Gilda Rogers, social justice advocate, Brookdale Community College instructor and vice president of the T. Thomas Fortune Foundation, whom they consider a mentor. Rogers suggested they consider holding their debut production at the T. Thomas Fortune Cultural Center.
Monaghan and Cox both hope the performance stimulates a dialogue about race and police relations, among other topics.
“The conversation doesn’t end on Juneteenth. It doesn’t end because Black History Month is over,” Cox said. “It’s an ongoing conversation that needs to be addressed within the community, despite what background you come from. Whether you’re Black, Hispanic or white, it involves the entire community. And the community is made up of a diverse amount of people that come from diverse backgrounds.”
“We have to come together as a community to actually address it and speak – how we honestly feel about it so that way we can understand each other’s perspective,” Cox said.
“It’s live art, and we’ve had little to no live art,” said Monaghan. “That’s exciting just in and of itself, and then we’ll talk about a lot of things that people have been wanting to talk about.”
He and Cox both know the topics may be uncomfortable for some. “We almost want people to feel a little bit uncomfortable, and have an uncomfortable conversation,” said Monaghan.
“I think it’ll be an uncomfortable conversation to make everyone comfortable in the long term.”
This article originally appeared in the Aug. 5 – 11, 2021, print edition of The Two River Times.
