09/23/2026
I’m really excited about today’s Heart of the Arts because we’re spending the afternoon with the people who build the worlds before anybody ever steps onto the stage: playwrights.
And today, I’m uplifting Black playwrights the ones who have used theater to document, imagine, challenge, make us laugh, tell the truth about where we come from, and create possibilities for where we might go next.
Throughout the first hour, I’ll be introducing you to a few incredible playwrights with deep North Carolina connections.
We’ll talk about Samm-Art Williams, the Burgaw-born playwright whose beautiful, deeply Southern Home became a landmark of Black American theater and eventually made its way from the Negro Ensemble Company to Broadway.
We’ll spend some time with Durham’s Howard L. Craft, whose work moves everywhere from Black history and North Carolina labor stories to superheroes, radio drama, poetry, and speculative storytelling.
I’ll introduce you to Monét Noelle Marshall, whose work pushes beyond the traditional boundaries of a “play” and asks hard questions about Black bodies, Black art, ownership, value, and what it actually means to support Black artists.
We’ll talk about JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell, a Durham-raised theater-maker who didn’t just ask where Black stories were on our stages..she helped build the infrastructure for them through Black Ops Theatre Company, the Bull City Black Theatre Festival, and her continued work championing Black artists.
And we’ll head west to Winston-Salem to talk about playwright, director, actor, and producer Jackie Alexander, Producing Artistic Director of the North Carolina Black Repertory Company, and the larger legacy of Black theater that has made Winston-Salem an important gathering place for Black theater artists from around the world.
In the second hour, I get to share a conversation I’ve been really looking forward to with playwright Alric Davis!!
Alric is a Houston-based playwright, director, performer, educator, critic, acting coach, and the Founding Artistic Director of The Sankofa Collective, a Black theater company he founded while he was still a teenager because he wanted to create more opportunities for young Black artists in Houston.
He went on to study at Howard University, earning his B.F.A. with concentrations in musical theater and playwriting, and has continued building a career that moves between writing, directing, performing, teaching, and creating spaces where other artists can grow.
His plays include Different, Damaged, Damned, Queen Peaches, Reap the Reparations, Bashful and the Noize, Buffalo Woman, Remember the Resurrection, and holyordinary. His work digs into Black identity and history, q***rness, masculinity, family, trauma, faith, belonging, and the complicated things we inherit from one another.
His work has been connected to institutions including Alley Theatre, The Tank, and the Kennedy Center, and he’s also an active director whose credits span everything from The Color Purple and The Wiz to Shakespeare, contemporary musicals, and new Black work.
Alric is also currently developing the musical Everybody’s Son with composer Aaron Alon, a project the two brought to Drama Club in this summer, which is actually where Alric and I had the chance to spend time together as fellow artists.
That makes today’s conversation feel especially special to me. This isn’t just somebody whose résumé I admire. I’ve gotten to see a little bit of how Alric thinks about the work, the people around him, and the responsibility that comes with building Black artistic spaces.
So come hang out with me today.
Heart of the Arts with Roni Nicole
📻 OAK 93.5 FM Raleigh
🕒 3:00–5:00 PM ET
💻 Listen: www.mixcloud.com/live/oak935
Today is for the people writing the stories and for everybody helping make sure those stories have somewhere to live. 🤙🏾😏
