Aggies, Wildcats and spending summer with the Bard

COMMON THREAD THEATRE

Shabaza Vaird plays Juicy in the Common Thread Theatre Collective production “Fat Ham.”

A collegiate theater company is back with a modern-day adaptation of a William Shakespeare classic.

The Common Thread Theatre Collective is a collaboration between Davidson College and North Carolina A&T State University. The collective launched in 2022 and its goal is to create productions that focus on voices and stories that have traditionally been underrepresented in American mainstream theater.

CTTC will produce “Fat Ham,” a Pulitzer-Prize-winning show written by North Carolina native James Ijames. The show is a modern-day adaptation of Hamlet.

“The play is very loosely based on the story of Hamlet, where the king’s brother, Hamlet's uncle, killed his father and basically usurped the power of the family,” said A&T professor Xulee Vanecia J. Boone, the production’s director who goes by the professional name Vanecia J. “All of the characters are directly related to Hamlet.

“There’s music, there’s dance, there’s lots of laughs, and it’s dealing with a lot of issues. It deals with, issues of sexuality. It deals with issues of hierarchy amongst, like masculinity within the family. Like as far as a son and his mother and their relationship and all of those different types of major themes that Black families deal with.”

The production will take place throughout June at the Barber Theatre on the Davidson campus, and for the first time, in Greensboro at the Paul Robeson Theatre on A&T’s campus.
This season will mark the first performances by CTTC in the largest historically Black university in North Carolina, something the collective is also celebrating.

“It was always the goal to do a run of a show or both summer shows at A&T. We thought it would take three to four years but because of funding from our dean in the College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. Frances Ward Johnson and Dr. Melody Perce the vice president of student affairs, we actually met this goal sooner than anticipated,” said CTTC co-founder and A&T professor Donna Bradby.

“We are extremely excited.”

In terms of the production, Bradby said Fat Ham was chosen because it spoke to the collective’s mission.

“This is a very unique play because it takes a contemporary theme, Black people and a universal thing, Black people in the South at a cookout and integrates the classical theater,” Boone said.

The collective is not only presenting thought-provoking productions giving a light to underrepresented communities, but it is also giving those same folks an opportunity in the industry.

“That's what I'm most excited about,” Boone said, “that we have basically an all-Black team of actors, artists, stage managers, interns. I think it's a really powerful statement.”

Below are the dates and times of when the production will be playing:

Davidson College (Barber Theatre, Cunningham Theatre Center 310 N. Main Street, Davidson)

• June 14 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 15 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 16 at 2 p.m.

• June 19 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 20 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 21 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 22 at 2 p.m. and at 7:30 p.m.

North Carolina A&T State University (Paul Robeson Theatre 1601 E. Market St., Greensboro)

• June 27 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 28 at 7:30 p.m.

• June 29 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

• June 30 at 3 p.m.

Tickets available through commonthreadtheatre.org or www.etix.com/ticket/e/1041940/cttc-2024-davidson-the-barber-theaterdavidson-college

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