Review: Not All the Fires Are Metaphorical in "Mecca Is Burning"
Mecca Is Burning Written by Cris Eli Blak, Lisa McCree, Levy Lee Simon, and Mona R. Washington Contributing writer: Karen Brown Directed by Karen Brown Presented by The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. ; co-commissioned by Penn Live Arts at the University of Pennsylvania Harlem School of the Arts, 645 St. Nicholas Ave., Manhattan, NYC August 10-20, 2023 A couple is estranged by their responses to impending violence. Dee' Ja-Ray (Kenya Wilson) and A'Brian (Alton Ray) receive an alert about impeding violence on their cell phone. Photo by Jonathan Slaff. For over a century, Harlem has been a center of Black culture in the United States, but the gentrification that began to encroach on the neighborhood in the new millennium continues to impact on and reshape the community in ways reflected in the title of the new play Mecca Is Burning . Mecca Is Burning is a production from The Negro Ensemble Company, Inc. (NEC), founded in 1965 by playwright Douglas Turner Ward, producer/actor Rober...