THE MOJO AND THE SAYSO
June 3—26
BAY AREA PREMIERE
by Aishah Rahman
directed by Ayodele Nzinga
Preview: Fri Jun 3 & Sat Jun 4
Opening Night: Sun Jun 5
Running Time: 80 minutes
*Note: If you are viewing the ticketing site on a desktop computer, tickets will only appear when you have selected a performance date.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Oakland Theater Project presents the first-ever Bay Area production of the 1989 play The Mojo and the Sayso by Aishah Rahman, a writer, professor and active participant in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s.
Based on the 1973 killing of a 10-year-old boy by the New York City Police, The Mojo and the Sayso mixes comedy, drama and fantasy in its exploration of devastating loss.
The play centers on the Benjamin family, three years after the death of their 10-year-old son Linus at the hands of an off-duty police officer. Father Acts finds escape in repairing and restoring automobiles. Mother Awilda has leaned into her faith and her pastor for solace. Their son Walter, renaming himself Blood, looks to action and violence. As the family revisits their loss, layers of grief unfold—along with new truths and the possibility of healing—in a play full of what the playwright herself termed “absurdity, intimacy and magic mayhem.”
indoor performance
JUN 3 – 26
FRI / SAT / SUN
7:30 PM
GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET
(Seating assigned upon arrival)
$27 - $37
PRIORITY TICKET
(Reserved seating)
$52
PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN TICKET
(Limited Number)
$10 - $20
Please note: Online ticket sales close 2 hours before the start of each performance
ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
AISHAH RAHMAN
A prolific playwright who described her writing style as reflective of a "jazz aesthetic," Rahman was ahead of her time in experimenting with form, mixing magical realism with sharp-edged comedy in a context that copes with unfathomable tragedy in order to reveal the profoundly human cost of racial injustice.
Rahman’s work was a forebear to Marcus Gardley, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Lynn Nottage, Jackie Sibblies Drury, and others that are celebrated today. Her work carries a grounded sensibility of her time congruent with the work of Lorraine Hansberry, but it also risks reflecting back a mystery of the human existence that complicates her form – a complicated form that resonates with our shared reality today.
CAST & DIRECTOR
Ayodele Nzinga
Director
Dane Troy*
Acts
Paige Mayes
Awilda
Stanley Hunt
Blood
Reginald Wilkins
Pastor
*Member of Actors’ Equity Association
Production Photos
Photos by David Flores II
livestream
There will no longer be a livestreamed performance of The Mojo and the Sayso due to scheduling conflicts between the production and the filming. We are sorry for the disappointment this may cause.
We will return with the livestreamed performances with our production of The Crucible.
LOCATION
All performances take place at Oakland Theater Project at FLAX art & design in Downtown Oakland.
The Oakland Theater at
FLAX art & design
1501 Martin Luther King Jr. Way
Oakland 94612
