A troupe of Calvin College students will present George C. Wolfe's award-winning play, "The Colored Museum," at 8 p.m. on both February 18 and February 19 in Calvin's Lab Theatre, as part of the school's Black History Month and Homecoming 1999 celebrations. Tickets are $6 for adults and $3 for students.

The troupe also plans a performance on February 25 at Grand Rapids Community College at a time to be announced.

The company will be under the direction of Michael Travis, Calvin's director of multicultural student development and an accomplished local actor. "This play represents the beginning of a tradition for Black History Month here at Calvin," said Travis. "Last year, the Multicultural Student Development Office produced the play ‘The Meeting' with local actors. Following the success of that production, the need for students to be involved was recognized. This specific play, consisting of separate vignettes, was chosen because of its adaptability to rehearsal schedules and number of characters needed as well as the fact that it has a powerful and important message."

Added Travis: "The Calvin community needs exposure to Black theatre and Black history, even if it's presented in a satirical or comical manner. Black theatre is an effective avenue for disseminating educational information."

Travis notes that the company has little stage experience, but tremendous potential. Rehearsals are on-going and Travis says the cast is growing individually and coming closer together as an ensemble – an extra benefit from his perspective.

"The Colored Museum" had its world premiere in 1986 and since then has been produced in venues big and small. Its satirical stories continue to strike a responsive chord with audiences.

Using vignettes or playlets some of "The Colored Museum" satirizes and lampoons various elements of African American culture. Other parts of the play deal with the search for identity, and the pain of lost identity, on the part of some African Americans.

"Symbiosis" relates a middle-class black man's attempt to throw away his past identity in order to properly assimilate into the white dominated society. The struggle for identity also is lampooned in "The Hairpiece" as a nearly bald black woman decides which wig to wear, an Afro wig or a long flowing one.

The first playlet is "Git on Board," which takes a satirical look at the involuntary African American voyage to America – using pseudo-sophisticated black flight attendant and images of slaves as baggage to be discarded if not claimed.

A New York Times review said that the play addresses the theme of how African Americans can "at once honor and escape the legacy of suffering that is the baggage of their past." A reviewer for New York Magazine added that "this is a sophisticated, satirical, seriously funny show that spoofs white and black America alike." But an African American reviewer for The Village Voice disagreed. She called the play disturbing and added that Wolfe's laughter is ". . . a sign of how very deep self-hatred has run in the black psyche."

The playwright himself has said: "Black American culture is a very fragmented thing. We're all trying to come up with some definition of what we are."