Playwright Conversations has long been a dream for Blackboard Founder, Garlia Cornelia Jones.  The idea was to create a dialogue with the Feature Playwrights of Blackboard Readings Series over the last 14 years (8 at the time of the podcast’s conception), in addition to Black Artists around the world.  What makes these Black writers tick, how have they gotten where they are and what do they want to say with their work.

We began fundraising and were able to afford most of the tools needed.  We recorded a couple conversations, but needed to get them out there…

Fast Forward to the Pandemic… Blackboard Plays in collaboration with PAAL (Parent Artists Advocacy League) created and executed the 1st Annual Black Motherhood and Parenting New Play Festival!  The Digital and National Festival took place from May – June of 2020 as a way to support the stories of Black Parents who were also Playwrights, just like Blackboard Founder, Garlia Cornelia Jones.

One of the exciting aspects of #BMPFest are the Playwright and artist interviews that Garlia did as part of the pre-recorded festival and via Instagram Lives!  The pandemic changed the landscape and the explosive podcast industry was something that Garlia was also seeing growing with her own eyes.

While the original output for “Playwright Conversations” has evolved from a voice-only podcast, an exciting part of the prep for #BMPFest and Behind-the-scenes for Blackboard will be the sharing of conversations with our Patreon community.

Still true of Playwright Conversations is that this may be the talent you may or may not see on Broadway, but it is the talent that is doing the work, regardless of if Broadway is the goal or not.

We look forward to sharing with you!

In the meantime, we continue to look for Sponsors.  You can support these Behind-the-Scenes talks and our other initiatives with a monthly subscription via Patreon.