{"id":59399,"date":"2020-02-07T18:28:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-07T18:28:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=59399"},"modified":"2020-02-18T19:14:24","modified_gmt":"2020-02-18T19:14:24","slug":"ahamefule-j-oluo-susan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=59399","title":{"rendered":"Ahamefule J. Oluo: Susan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ahamefule J. Oluo: Susan<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center<\/a>
\nUniversity of Maryland
\n8270 Alumni Drive
\nCollege Park, Maryland 20742-1625
\n2020-02-07 and 2020-02-08, 20:00 EST (Local Time)<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

After moving audiences at The Clarice in 2017, trumpeter, composer and comedian Ahamefule J. Oluo<\/a> returns with \u201cSusan,\u201d a memoir delivered through wry comedic monologue and live, grand-scale big-band and jazz.<\/p>\n

When Susan Hawley was a sophomore in college, she fell in love with a doctoral student from Nigeria<\/a>. They got married, had two children, and just as their dream life seemed like it was coalescing, her husband went back to Nigeria to visit his family and never contacted her again\u2014leaving her a Midwestern white lady with two African babies. They were desperately poor; Susan began gaining weight rapidly, soon reaching 400 pounds. These were the cards she was dealt. Ahamefule J. Oluo\u2019s theatrical work, Susan<\/em>, tells his mother\u2019s story as a means to tell the story of millions of women. It is a tangible crystallization of how race, class and size affect people all over the world every day. Despite all that darkness, Susan<\/em> will be funny. It\u2019s a collection of wry, black, but humane monologues, interspersed with live, grand-scale orchestral music.<\/p>\n

This vulnerable theatrical work about his childhood tells the story of how his Midwestern mother was left to raise two bi-racial babies after the sudden departure of her husband. There\u2019s obvious chemistry between Oluo\u2019s singular voice and the grand creation of the music; at times, when the story is too painful for him, the ensemble carries the show. \u201cSusan\u201d is a category-defying reflection on how race, class, and appearance impact everyone\u2014and how we play the hand that we\u2019re dealt.<\/p>\n

In 2002, after being selected as Town Hall Seattle\u2019s<\/a> first-ever artist-in-residence, Oluo realized he wanted to do something different. After years of performing and recording with prominent musicians like John Zorn<\/a>, Hey Marseilles<\/a>, Wayne Horvitz<\/a> and Macklemore<\/a>, Oluo knew he had his own story to tell\u2014and the diverse set of skills to do it. During his time in residency, he began experimenting with blending big-band, jazz, standup and memoir to formulate a new musical and theatrical identity.<\/p>\n

For more information, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This vulnerable theatrical work about his childhood tells the story of how his Midwestern mother was left to raise two bi-racial babies after the sudden departure of her husband, a Nigerian doctoral student.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1245,13,8,20,25],"tags":[30615,30617,1392,30618,30616,1586],"class_list":["post-59399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-biography","category-liveevents","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-ahamefule-j-oluo","tag-clarice-smith-performing-arts-center","tag-music","tag-susan-hawley","tag-the-clarice-smith-performing-arts-center","tag-university-of-maryland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59399"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59401,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59399\/revisions\/59401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}