Spoken Word Artist Rai Renea Debuts One-Woman Play
November 2-4 at 7pm
African Heritage Cultural Arts Center
6161 NW 22nd Ave
Miami, Fl 33142
The opening show is $7.00. Saturday and Sunday’s show are $10.00
Tickets can be purchased Online.

Play adapted from Rai Renea’s published poem Sticks and Stones.

Spoken word artist Rai Renea will deliver her one-woman play inspired by her published poem of the same title. Sticks and Stones: Fairy Tales and Other Lies as Told to a Child . The play will have a limited run at the African Heritage Cultural Arts Center.

The play uses a combination of poetry, monologue and dance to explore the social consequences of common phrases parents tell their children – such as “sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me.”

In segments like “Children Should be Seen and Not Heard” and “Go to School and Work Hard”, Rai tells revealing stories of intolerance, judgment and truth; heartache and relevance through characterization of people who were told the sayings as children and are adversely affected by their ramifications as adults.

Rai wrote Sticks and Stones as a poem after a disagreement with someone who was intentionally using words to hurt her.

“I knew the words didn’t describe me, but I found myself still thinking about them weeks later,” she said. “It made me think about all the things I was told as a child that I had to erase, laugh off, or otherwise get out of my psyche because they were affecting me psychologically.”

Sticks and Stones video is available on YouTube; the spoken word single is available for purchase on iTunes and cdbaby.com.

Sticks and Stones: Fairy Tales and Other Lies as Told to a Child is directed by Albrika Sesheta Gordon, owner of Urban Eye TV. Follow Renea on Twitter @RaiRenea. For more information visit: www.nevergrowupmedia.com.

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