Fanni Green is an actor, director, playwright, poet and theatre professor. Gary Lemons is a writer, painter, musician and professor of African American literature and womanist studies.
In this lively conversation, Fanni and Gary delve into the passion and activism at the heart of all their work and the joys of a marrying a fellow artist.
They share stories of growing up with parents who weren’t able to go to college – and weren’t convinced that art or acting was a good career choice. And they explore the spirituality that informs their lives and their creative work.
Fanni Green is a versatile actor, the heart of a terrific production of A Raisin in the Sun at American Stage and many of their August Wilson plays.
A native of St. Petersburg and graduate of USF and NYU, Fanni is everyone’s favorite professor at the USF School of Theatre and Dance and has taught on the voice faculties of The Actor’s Center in NY, the Yale School of Drama and the Juilliard School.
Her professional work includes Mule Bone (Broadway) with musician Taj Mahal, Antony and Cleopatra (Off- Broadway) with Vanessa Redgrave, and Tony Kushner’s Reverse Transcription, in a Humana Festival production directed by Tony Kushner. Local audiences remember her powerful performance in Yellowman, the production of Suzan-Lori Parks’ In the Blood she directed at Stageworks, and Bob Devin Jones’ Voodoo Macbeth at The Studio@620, where she served as the dialect coach.
More on Fanni Green – theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu/content/templates/?z=9&a=615
More on What the Heart Remembers: the Women and Children of Darfur that Fanni Green created with USF Dance Professor Jeanne Travers – theatreanddance.arts.usf.edu/content/templates/?a=2068
Her compelling thoughts on Diversity in Casting – inclusioninthearts.org/projects/national-diversity-forum/opinion-pieces/fanni-green/
Gary Lemons is a Full Professor of African American literature, black feminist and womanist studies in the Department of English at the University of South Florida. He received his Ph.D. in English from New York University.
His books include Black Male Outsider, a Memoir: Teaching as a Pro-Feminist Man (State University of New York Press, 2008), Womanist Forefathers, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. Du Bois (also published by SUNY Press, 2009), Feminist Solidarity at the Crossroads: Intersectional Women’s Studies for Transracial Alliance (Routledge, 2012, co-edited with Kim Vaz), Caught Up in the Spirit! Teaching for Womanist Liberation (Nova Science Publishers, Inc., 2017), and Building Womanist Coalitions: Creating Bridges, Crossing Borders in the Spirit of Love (University of Illinois Press, forthcoming in 2018).
Gary’s an expressive visual artist with recent exhibitions at the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum and The Studio@620 – thestudioat620.org/events/myafrika-art
More on Gary’s work at USF– english.usf.edu/faculty/glemons/
“Can a Black Man Be a Feminist?” – news.usf.edu/article/templates/default.aspx?a=3285&template=print-article.htm
Arts In is produced by Sheila Cowley.
Executive Producer, Barbara St. Clair for Creative Pinellas.
