Kimmika's Plays

		SURVIVAL STRATEGIES - By Kimmika L. H. Williams Every parent who watches the news today (with so many children at risk and the precariousness and violence of our time) has had to reflect on what personal sacrifice we, collectively, and individually, would make to save a child. Survival Strategies: A Tale of Faith, is a gritty but, gripping, drama about one Christian mother’s last ditch effort to reclaim her only child from the throes of drug addiction and what lengths she is willing to go through to save her daughter. Survival Strategies is based on a true story about a West Philadelphia woman who, despite disappointment after disappointment, resorted to “the unthinkable” to save her only child from “crack” cocaine addiction. Not for the faint of heart, this piece by offers a unique look at the pervasiveness of contemporary drug culture and how it has negatively impacted the Black community. Although the script won Kimmika Williams the PEW Charitable Trusts Award in Scriptwriting in 2000 and a scene from the piece was staged at the Painted Bride Art Center that year, because of its gritty subject matter, this is the first time that this play will receive a public reading. (Survival Strategies uses extreme language and situation. Parental guidance is suggested.) CHARACTERS: Mrs. Gertrude Power (Gertrude means “warrior woman”) Power (Bernadine means “brave as a bear”.) Sister Wooten Police Officer #1/Drug Dealer Police Officer #2 Repairman. From the PEW ARTS Review... As the intensity of Kimmika Williams's play "Survival Strategies: A Tale of Faith" builds, drug addicted Wilhemenia - who prefers to be called Billie - shouts at her mother/captor, "This ain't no god damn drama!" But that's exactly what it is, and in Williams' starkly drawn world, a mother's love is dramatically contrasted against a daughter's self-destructive inclinations. Mrs. Gertrude Power goes to nearly unimaginably dramatic lengths to reclaim her daughter, but the revelations which occurs to Wilhemenia - including an epiphany in which she realizes that the ties which bind mother and daughter are more lifelines than fetters - dawn slowly and gently. In transporting life at the edges of society to center stage, Ms. Williams's writing retains some of the gritty realism of her journalist's education, and is counterweighted by a poetic sensibility and an ear for spoken language. The machinery of drama is carefully tooled with the words and rhythms of daily life, even as the drama escalates to hyperbolic levels. In an age awash in "reality based entertainment," where audiences are encouraged to believe that drama is accidental, Ms. Williams participates in the blurring of boundaries between street and stage. But her work and words deny the prurient, voyeuristic appeal of so-called "reality," instead pointing toward a more vivid reality; one which directed by theater itself.

		AT WHAT PRICE UNITY - By Kimmika L. H. Williams The ever present now. PLACE: The action of the play takes place in a neighborhood corner bar on 52nd and Market Street in West Philly called Club Zulu. Playing TIME: About two hours. When efforts to catch a serial killer, preying on Black women in West Philadelphia fail, a band of young men –a pimp, a hustler, a drug dealer, a homosexual and the neighborhood psychic who sells incense, take matters into their own hands, patterned after the Zulu Warriors for which their neighborhood bar is named. STORY: AT WHAT PRICE UNITY is a contemporary drama that deals with two of our most prevalent urban phenomenon in the black community--drug addiction and violent crimes against women. The play depicts a dichotomy of characters in an ever-changing urban neighborhood--that would probably exist mutually exclusively--if women in the neighborhood were not being stalked and killed. When the murders start to hit home--a mother, a grandmother, a girlfriend, a daughter--these contemporary misfits must find a way to ban together and attempt to solve the crimes; but, at what price: unity?

		DOG DAYS: THE KILLING OF OCTAVIOUS CATTO - By Kimmika L. H. Williams While Mrs. O'Leary's cow was starting a fire in Chicago, Philadelphia was burning in a fire all it's own. This new, historical docu-drama, Dog Days: The Killing of Octavious Catto, is based on the life and death of the handsome, young and charismatic Octavious Valentine Catto. O.V. Catto rose out of Philadelphia's "colored ward" in the early 1800's, to become a champion of civil rights, a voting rights activist and a noted educator with the Institute for Colored Youth, (that was to later become Cheyney University) and for a brief moment in time, united a community, long before men like DuBois, Garvey or Martin Luther King, Jr. could look towards a similar dream. Brutally murdered on Election Day, in 1871, Catto's death touched off one of the most incendiary race riots that Philadelphia was to ever know. This riveting piece by Philadelphia playwright Kimmika L. H. Williams, resurrects Catto's memory and a piece of history from the grave! Characters:

		CLICK ON LINK BELOW TO READ - "*EAVESDROPPING"* - an excerpt: *From Brillo Pads to Feminine Pads: Raw Abrasives* http://www.pewarts.org/2000/Williams/eavesdropping.html

		Kimmika's stage credits include, "From Brillo Pads To Feminine Pads: Raw Abrasives", "A Product of Pop Culture and Pissed", "Nappy Truth", "Common Folk", "A CHAINED FOOT STUMBLING ON A NEW WORLD", "GUMBO", "WE THE PEOPLE", "IZZY", "THE BLACK DIAMOND" and "WHERE WERE YOU IN '65". As a playwright, Williams-Witherspoon has had sixteen of her plays produced in professional theater, including "From Brillo Pads to Feminine Pads: Raw Abrasives".

		READINGS OF KIMMIKA'S PLAYS: 2003 “Survival Strategies: A Tale of Faith”, world premiere, First World Theater March 13-30^th, Philadelphia 1999 "From Brillo Pads to Feminine Pads: Raw Abrasives", (excerpt) Women's Ink, Robin's Bookstore, Sunday November 7. 1999 "Brown Ices: Chocolate Drops" excerpt performed in the 1999 Black Theater Festival, August 26-29th, Theater Double 1998 "From Brillo Pads to Feminine Pads: Raw Abrasives", Ninth Annual Women's Theater Festival, Painted Bride Art Center, Philadelphia, March 26-27th 1998 "Dog Days: The Legend of O.V. Catto", Venture Theater The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom Street, Phila. Feb. 10-March 12th 1996 BY WHAT PRICE: UNITY, Pew Charitable Trusts Exchange, Penumbra Theater, St. Paul, Mn 1996 DOG DAYS: THE KILLING OF OCTAVIOUS CATTO, a workshop at the Balche Institute for Ethnic Studies in conjunction with Venture Theater 1995 DOG DAYS: THE KILLING OF OCTAVIOUS CATTO, workshop presentation, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY 1993 NAPPY TRUTHS, Pew Charitable Trusts Exchange, Penumbra Theater, St. Paul, MN 1993 A CHAINED FOOT STUMBLING ON A NEW WORLD, reprised at Temple University's Randall Theater 1993 BROWN ICES: CHOCOLATE DROPS, Walnut Street Theater's Studio 5 1991 A CHAINED FOOT STUMBLING ON A NEW WORLD, commissioned by Temple University Student Activities 1989 AWAKE, Bushfire Theater, Philadelphia, PA 1989 GUMBO, Bushfire Theater, Philadelphia, PA 1988 A WOMAN'S CHOICE, produced by Maceba Affairs, Cannon Theater, Beverly Hills, CA 1987 WE THE PEOPLE: THE REAL ONES, Bushfire Theater, Philadelphia; reprised in part, for the Black Family Reunion Celebration, 1987, Washington, D.C. 1987 JUST WAIT ONE CONSTITUTIONAL MINUTE, a WE THE PEOPLE: 200 commissioned work, Bushfire Theater, Philadelphia, PA 1986 THE GIRL WHO CHOSE ABORTION, Warner Theater, Washington, D.C.; the Majestic Theater, Detroit, MI and the Maceba Theater, Houston, Texas 1985, SLAUGHTERHOUSE, Bushfire Theater, Philadelphia, PA