Play runs almost 2 decades, you can't name it

**I also posted this at All American Blog**

If I told you that a play has been performed continuously for more than 15 years, with 2500 performances around the world, any you couldn’t name what it was you might think I was silly. Let’s see. Think of what play I could be talking about, don’t go further, and just get the names in your head or on paper.

No cheating. Give it a moment.


Ok, are you ready now? What did you get? Cats, Les Misreables? Little Shop of Horrors? Rocky Horror Picture Show? All wrong.

The play I’m discussing is 1,001 Black Inventions. Never heard of it? I’m not surprised. Neither had I until I saw a bit on it at the Richmond Register. Yet this play has been going strong since 1986. The play is more than the history lesson the title may cause you to believe.

This play looks at several inventors of African and African American decent that have literally changed the world. What did these inventors (such as Benjamin Banneker, Dr. Daniel Hale Williams, Jan Ernst Matzeliger) make that could affect the world? What would the world be like without their various inventions?

A place with no cellular phones, typewriters or fountain pens. No spark plugs, lawn mowers or self-starting gasoline motors. No clothes dryers, hair brushes, or ironing boards no rolling pins, biscuit cutters or peanut butter.

That’s just a few of the items. The play takes a look at what the effect might be without all these items and the trial of Dr George Washington Carver for witchcraft. It’s a satire and a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it makes its point.

Addressing the view of British historian Arnold Toynbee, who wrote that the "black race" had never made a creative contribution to any civilization. While this is a tunnel visioned, myopic view of the facts, its impact can be seen in the programming and emphasis of the media in targeting and portraying African Americans today. This play takes that image and shows the converse with humor.

If you don’t have the chance to see 1,001 Black Inventions, currently at Eastern Kentucky University, there is a book available. But I’d suggest seeing a play that’s garnered honors such as the D.C. Commission on the Arts' "Mayor's Excellence in the Arts Awards” and endorsements from the Smithsonian Institution.

Hey, it’s done thousands of performances for nearly 2 decades, there has to be something that keeps it going, don’t you think? Broadway doesn’t have all the success stories out there.