Acting Thesis: The Colored Museum
Student Event
Acting Thesis: The Colored Museum
Columbia University School of Arts MFA Acting Cohort of 2025 presents George C. Wolfe’s 1986 classic The Colored Museum, in which 11 satirical exhibits take aim at the most pernicious American stereotypes of Black culture.
FREE
Lenfest Center for the Arts - The Flexible Performance Space
November 16, 2024 | 8:00 pm
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Featured Cast

Isaiah Brown
Son (Walter Lee), Kid, Announcer
Milton Espinoza
Junie Robinson
Sarah-Michele Guei
Miss Patt, Mama, Admonia
Jaucqir LaFond
The Man, Guy, Narrator, Miss Roj
Yvonne Pruitt
Lala, Girl, Lawanda, Medea
Scenarious Thurmond
Ethel, Woman, Norma Jean, Topsy, Lady in Plaid

Creative Team

George C. Wolfe
Playwright
Kysia Bostic
Music
Nigel Semaj
Director
Sophia Parker
Dramaturg

Location

Lenfest Center for the Arts
615 W 129th St
New York, NY

About The Performance

Columbia University School of Arts MFA Acting Cohort of 2025 presents George C. Wolfe’s The Colored Museum directed by Nigel Semaj.

In Wolfe’s 1986 classic The Colored Museum, 11 satirical exhibits take aim at the most pernicious American stereotypes of Black culture. Through provoking throughout, at times mournful, aspirational, uncomfortable, and riotously funny, The Colored Museum asks audiences of all colors to look beyond the overworked ideas of how Blackness is represented and to create space for a bigger, broader, more full future.

As Wolfe writes in the show: “So, hunny, don’t waste your time trying to label or define me… ’cause I’m not what I was ten years ago or ten minutes ago. I’m all of that and then some. And whereas I can’t live inside yesterday’s pain, I can’t live without it.”

Produced by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing.

PLEASE NOTE: The Colored Museum is a satire that directly addresses stereotypes of the Black experience in America, and is presented by a cast composed entirely of performers of color. This play contains references to and depictions of enslavement; descriptions of physical violence, including intimate partner violence; and the use of race-based and gender-based derogatory language, including the n-word. 

For more information, please visit the event website.

Image: Production artwork for The Colored Museum