EKU to present ‘1,000 Black Inventions’

Local News

October 1, 2007

Bryan Marshall The Richmond Register Mon Oct 01, 2007, 12:04 PM EDT

The Washington, D.C.,-based Pin Points Theatre Company has performed shows in many communities around the United States and Europe.

Hosted by Eastern Kentucky University’s African/African American Studies Program, the company will present “1,001 Black Inventions” from 7 to 8 p.m. Thursday.

The program, co-sponsored by EKU’s Department of Athletics and Office of Student Affairs, will be performed in O’Donnell Hall in the Student Services Building Auditorium.

“It is not every day that we have an international theater group from Washington, D.C., perform on the EKU campus,” said Salome Nnoromele, director of EKU’s African/African-American Studies. “It is a great opportunity. I hope everyone will take the opportunity to see the show.”

Written in 1983, “1,001 Black Inventions” is a play that “uses music, drama and humor to feature the lives of four ingenious innovators, then takes the audience into the Twilight Zone, a world gone mad without the inventions of Africans and African-Americans,” said Ersky Freeman, executive director of Pin Points and writer of the play.

“The play was written from my distaste with the distorted images of black people that insult and assault us everyday — as if our major contributions to the world are in slave labor, entertainment, athletics and crime,” he said. “Images that are so pervasive that many African-Americans imitate these images, instead of these images being a reflection of who they are. I wrote both the play and the book as a kind of a counter attack to prove a basic truth — our foremost contributions to the world are of the intellect.”

Last Year, Pin Points was hosted by the Norton Center for the Arts at Centre College in Danville. The play has been presented for 15 years and 2,500 performances.

“The show is a celebration of the contributions black people have made to society here in the United States, as well as throughout the world,” Nnoromele said. “Most people know that Washington Carver is instrumental to inventing the peanut butter that many of us enjoy today. But, very few people know about other contributions.

“The show is both educational and entertaining in that it draws attention to those things we take for granted because they are part of our everyday life,” she said. “But, we never stop to ask about who invented them and why.”

Tickets can be purchased by calling the African/African-American Studies office at 622-8676 to reserve tickets or by buying them in rooms 121 or 125 in the Keith Building on campus.

The cost is $3 for all students, including high school students, and $5 for general admission.

“I hope people who attend the show will leave feeling good about themselves and recognizing that black people throughout history have worked in many ways to make our world a better place for everyone to live,” Nnoromele said.

Bryan Marshall can be reached at bmarshall@richmondregister.com or 624-6691.

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