The Black Lavender Experience kicks off with a Brown Pride Month convocation performance by Mangos with Chili. Founded in 2006 by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha and Ms. Cherry Galette, Mangos with Chili is a touring cabaret of queer and trans people-of-color performance artists, offering unforgettable performance in celebration of their lives, stories, survival, and the legacies they are creating for future generations of queer and trans people-of-color. Their performance on Wednesday, April 7th at 9pm in the George Houston Bass Performing Arts Space precedes a weekend of staged readings and conversations inspired by the work of Isissa Komada-John ‘10, Andre Thompson ‘05, Ione Lloyd and E. Patrick Johnson. Click HERE for the full schedule.

Brown’s Rites & Reason Theatre is one of three Black Theaters in Providence (Black Rep and Pawtucket’ Mixed Magic being the other two). R&R has been developing and producing new work by students in Brown’s RPM (Research To Performance) playwriting classes since the 1970s and is the region’s oldest continually producing Black Theatre. That’s not to say R&R doesn’t explode the mold of Black Theatre, producing pieces an out of time retelling of the history of Hawaiian statehood on the eve of Pearl Harbor’s 60th anniversary.

The Forgetting Machine, written by Emma Chung-Ming Tai, and directed by Connie Crawford, with artistic direction by Professor Elmo Terry-Morgan, takes place Thursday October 23, 2008 through Sunday, November 2^nd, 2008. Performances on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays take place at 7 pm and on Sundays at 3pm, Rites and Reason Theatre in the George Houston Bass Performing Arts Space, Brown University, Churchill House, 155 Angell St. Providence. Sunday matinees will be followed by FolkThought, the Rites and Reason signature post play discussions. There is a suggested donation of $10 collected at the door. Reservations may be made 401-863-3558 and forgetting_machine@Brown.edu. All are invited.

Photo: Kai Morrel and Noam Dorr in Emma Chung’s “The Forgetting Machine”