Aku Kadogo returns to the Bonstelle Theatre after directing for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf for the Black Theatre Program at the Bonstelle Theatre in 2002. Kadogo is a producer, director, choreographer, teacher and traveler whose career continues to present opportunities to produce works that challenge and blur boundaries. In October 2004 she devised a large-scale performance installation with Detroit-born artist Tyree Guyton for the City of Sydney’s Art and About Visual Art Festival. Singing for that Country was a collaboration with Mr. Guyton, 150 youth from the South Sydney area and the City of Sydney.

She spent 1998 and 1999 traveling to the Central Desert of Australia to research and create OCHRE & DUST, an installation featuring Pitjantjatjara storytellers, commissioned by the Adelaide and Perth International Festivals 2000. This work also traveled to the South Pacific Festival in New Caledonia.

Her performance work includes frenzy for the 1998 Cultural Olympic’s A Sea Change Festival, Sydney. In 2002 she was Artist in Residence at New York University, Gallatin School, where she lectured and performed in her own work, The Quilt.

Her career has spanned stage, film and television. Kadogo settled in Australia after appearing in the original Broadway, Australian and Los Angeles casts of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.

Kadogo has just returned from China staging the Asian touring company of RENT. She has been an associate choreographer on RENT since 1998.

Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God is set in Negro Creek, a once thriving black community in Western Ontario. The story follows Rainey Baldwin-Johnson and her journey through the pain of loss and the discovery that out of death, out of passing, comes life. The play utilizes a living set, made up of the chorus, which, according to the playwright Djanet Sears becomes an “integral part of the story telling through their illustration of the underlying themes and ideas in the play.”

The cast includes: Madeleine Bien (Chorus/Novi, MI), Sam Brilhart (Chorus/Linden, MI), Falynn Burton (Chorus/Southfield, MI), Jasmine Cherry (Chorus/Mt. Clemens, MI), Alaina Fleming (Darese/Detroit, MI), Henri Franklin (Michael/Detroit, MI), Thomas Harris (Abendigo/Phoenix, AZ), Kristina Johnson (Girlene/Detroit, MI), Kennikki Jones (Ivy/Ecorse, MI), Ashley McAllister (Janie/Detroit, MI), Lisa McCormick (Chorus/Detroit, MI), Brishen Miller (Chorus/Kalamazoo, MI), Antoinette Moore (Chorus/Detroit, MI), Damon Moore (Chorus/Wales,MI), Jaazmine Parker (Chorus/Ecorse, MI), Victoria Weatherspoon (Chorus/Detroit, MI), Steve West (Chorus/Plymouth, MI), Deborah Joy Winans (Rainey/Detroit, MI). The show is stage managed by Andrea Kannon (Ferndale, MI). Designers for the production include Hilberry company member David Court (scenic design/Windsor, Ontario), Bonstelle company member Adrienne Brady (lighting design/Utica, MI), Bonstelle company members Rahme Rayes (co-sound designer/Livonia, MI) and Justine Brock (co-sound designer/Berkley, MI), and Bonstelle company member Andrea Brown (costume design/Memphis, TN).

Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God opens at the Bonstelle Theatre on Friday, January 20 with performances on January 21, 27, and 28 at 8 p.m. and January 22 and 29 at

2 p.m. Tickets for Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God can be purchased in advance by calling the Wayne State University Theatre Box Office (located at 4743 Cass Ave. on the corner of Cass and Hancock) at (313) 577-2960 Tuesdays through Saturdays from noon until 6 p.m. Tickets can also be purchased at the door at the Bonstelle Theatre, located at 3424 Woodward, beginning one hour prior to each performance. Ticket prices range from $11 - $14 with discounts available for senior citizens, students, faculty and Alumni Association members. Performance information may also be obtained by visiting the theatre’s website at www.theatre.wayne.edu.

Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God
Friday, January 20 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, January 21 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, January 22 at 2 p.m.
Friday, January 27 at 8 p.m.
Saturday, January 28 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, January 29 at 2 p.m.

Season sponsored by Between the Lines, Metrotimes and Dearborn Times Herald.

Photo Credits: Sarah Clare Meyer