Collaboraction, Chicago's social justice theater company, will mark the one-year anniversary of the Capitol Insurrection with a live, online screening of the pilot episode of Carla Stillwell’s Oh Colonizers on Thursday, January 6, 2022 at 7 p.m. CT.
Tickets are $6 or FREE with a CollaborActivist Membership. Go to collaboraction.org/oh-colonizers for more information and to register. Registration is required to receive the Zoom link.
In Oh Colonizers, Collaboraction producer Carla Stillwell remixes a Masterpiece Theatre format with a TV reality dating show to expose the folly of the January 6 Capitol Insurrection
In this pilot episode of her new series, Stillwell, producer at Collaboraction and Chicago’s self-proclaimed Cultural Historian of Black Joy and Resident Philosopher, remixes a Masterpiece Theatre format with a TV reality dating show to expose the folly of what she calls “Honkey Kong 2021.”
With her signature humor and insight, Stillwell unpacks the ways white people throughout America’s history have spread "oppression mayonnaise" over countless Black and Brown people, focusing particularly on the period after the Civil War when America had a choice between emancipation, reconciliation and capitalism. The 12-minute show is punctuated with several hilarious mock TV ads peddling white people’s favorite false products and services like Audacity Energy Drink and Confederate Cellular.
Following the screening, Stillwell will join a live Zoom discussion reflecting on the historical themes of Oh Colonizers, the start of the new year and the current state of American social and political discourse.
“Oh Colonizers connects the Insurrection to the Civil War in that the citizens who seceded from the Union were never punished after the Civil War ended. This lack of accountability is also why citizens thought it was ok to storm our Capitol, injure police and take the building hostage. We will screen this informative and hilarious historical satire on January 6th to provide an educational tool for us all,” said Anthony Moseley, director of Oh Colonizers, and Artistic Director, Collaboraction Theatre Company.
For more information, visit collaboraction.org, follow the company on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, or call (312) 226-9633.
Watch the trailer for Oh Colonizers
A fake ad for Audacity Energy Drink! One sip gives white people the nerve, the hubris and unmitigated gall it takes to stand up for conservative values.
Grab these and more screen caps from Oh Colonizers here.
About Carla Stillwell
Carla Stillwell (she/her) has been an award-winning Chicago actor, playwright and director for three decades. She is the former Artistic Director and a Playwright-In-Residence at Chicago’s MPAACT Theatre and is a teaching artist at Victory Gardens. She is also the founder and Executive Director of The Stillwell Institute for Contemporary Black Art, which recruits, develops and supports contemporary Black artists, and teaches art making in the Black community as a healing practice, a vehicle for social change and a viable career opportunity.
Stillwell has contributed to the online theater magazine HowlRound writing popular articles including “What do we tell our young Playwrights who are Black,” “Diversity: It’s a Noun” and “What is Your Mission?” A quote from the latter, published in 2013, has never been more important, and fits right in Collaboraction’s social change mission:
"The goal is not to perform diversity by creating small opportunities for a select few, or instating arbitrary practices (i.e., the reader’s series for playwrights of color, etc.) that are not connected to a broader institutional paradigm shift. The goal is, or should be, to create diverse theater spaces that are fully inclusive of all cultures, genders, sexualities and abilities. One of the ways in which I believe we can achieve this parity on our stages is if we all take a step back and look at our mission statements in their broadest construct." (Read the full essay on HowlRound.)
Stillwell began her directorial career with the late-night stage production of the popular 70’s sitcom Good Times. She went on to direct Addae Moon’s critically acclaimed She Calls up the Sun, Kevin Douglas’ No Experience Necessary, Keith Josef Adkins’ The Last Saint on Sugar Hill, Paul Notice’s Leaves, Trees, Forest, Eric Lockley’s Without Trace, MPAACT’s 2015-16 season, and Shepsu Aakhu’s Never the Milk and Honey (2017). She has been a visiting workshop director for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and directed the new play More Than Neighbors for the 2018 Great Plains Theatre Conference.
As a playwright, her credits include Lawd the CVS is Burning: A Gospel Musical Stage Play, The People Who Could Fly and Other Stories of Freedom, Burf of a Nation: Or from Covfefe With Love, Defending Myself, her one-woman show Carla…In Search of My Silky Underthings, The Divine Order of Becoming (Joseph Jefferson Award/Black Theatre Alliance Award nominated), and the Blaxploitation series with co-writers Kevin Douglas and Inda Craig-Galvan (four BTAA Awards). She also adapted and directed work of poet Orron Kenyatta in the Jeff-nominated Tad in 5th City, noted in the “Top 25 Plays of 2010” by Chicago Theatre Blog and featured in the August Wilson Reading Round Table Series at The August Wilson Center for African American Culture. Stillwell’s show Bodies won a Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Play, was Jeff-nominated for Best New Work and was selected for a reading at the 2012 New Black Play Festival in New York. Her children’s show about healthy eating, When Good Broccoli Goes Bad: The Musical!, was produced by the Chicago Park District. She has been commissioned to create work for Theatre Seven of Chicago and The DuSable Museum of African American History, and was a 2018-19 Artist–in–Residency at The Experimental Station in Chicago. Most recently, she finished Orange Rope or A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Capitol, a commission for Collaboraction.
About Collaboraction: Changing the map and removing barriers within the theater industry
Collaboraction, Chicago’s theater for social change, collaborates with a diverse community of Chicagoans, artists and community activists to create original theatrical and virtual experiences that cultivate dialogue and action around the world’s most critical social issues.
Since the company’s founding in 1996, Collaboraction has pushed artistic boundaries working with more than 4,000 artists to bring over 100 productions and events to more than 150,000 unique audience members, and has inspired measurable positive change on social justice in Chicago and beyond. Collaboraction’s work includes Sketchbook, Peacebook, Crime Scene, Forgotten Future and Gender Breakdown.
Collaboraction is led by Artistic Director Anthony Moseley, Executive Director Saudia Davis, a company of 20 talented Chicago theater artists, and a dedicated staff and board of directors. In August 2021, the company returned to live performances with The Light, a new ensemble of six high-achieving Chicago youth artists and activists, presented as part of the Chicago Park District’s Night Out in the Parks program. Last fall, Collaboraction continued in-person performances with its 6th Peacebook Festival at Kennedy-King College in Englewood and the Kehrein Center for the Arts in Austin.
Collaboraction’s Together Network, launched at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, still presents exclusive virtual content like Becoming, a live web show for anyone looking to be active anti-racists (first Tuesday of every month at 6 p.m. CT), and Crucial Connections, a live, interactive talk show that brings social justice warriors, artists and community residents together for crucial conversations (third Thursday of every month, 8 p.m. CT). Learn more at collaboraction.org/together-network.
Collaboraction continues to use the theater at Kennedy-King College in Englewood as its mainstage producing home. Meanwhile, the company has initiated a search for its next home for live performances, community building and video production, exploring Chicago neighborhoods historically overlooked like Englewood, Austin and Lawndale.
Collaboraction has been acknowledged for innovation and inclusivity by using theater as a tool for social change with numerous awards including, most recently, a 2020 Foster Innovation Award from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the 2020 Multi-Racial Unity Award from the First Unitarian Church-Chicago, a 2018 Stand For the Arts Award from Comcast & OvationTV, and an Otto Award from New York’s Castillo Theatre.
Collaboraction is supported by The Chicago Community Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Humanities, Paul M. Angell Foundation, Marc & Jeanne Malnati Family Foundation, Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation, the Bayless Family Foundation, Spreading Hearts, AV Chicago, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency. Collaboraction is supported by a grant of U.S. Department of Treasury funds through the City of Chicago. (The opinions, findings, conclusions and recommendations expressed by Collaboraction are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Department of Treasury or the City of Chicago.)
For more information, visit collaboraction.org, follow the company on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or YouTube, or call (312) 226-9633.
Want to spark social change in Chicago and beyond?
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