Karma Sides With Theater Student Told 'There's No Space For Black Theatre Makers'

Karma is clearly her homegirl.

Eno Mfon, 21, has just finished her Theater course at the Bristol University in the United Kingdom. an education and a career in Theater is no walk in the park, and Mfon knows that all too well. It just isn’t called for hen her teachers say unnecessary and unhelpful comments –like, oh, say for example, that there is no space for black artists in Theater.

Mfon, however, had the last laugh. she recently posted this status message, along with a photo of her looking supa fly:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209274627640623&set=p.10209274627640623&type=3&theater

Just in case, her status post reads thusly:

When you’re the only black kid on your course and one of the head lecturers tells you there’s no space for black theater makers on the curriculum so you spend three years learning about Chekhov and Carol Ann Duffy but then realize that you can write your own stuff for lil black girls and so you do that, and sell out the Bristol Old Vic and the lecturer that told you there’s no space for you, pays to watch you perform.

How’d this all happen? Mfon staged a play that wrote and went on stage at no less than Bristol’s Old Vic theater with Check the Label. Mfon’s piece is a discourse based on her experience as a little girl growing up with dark skin, and discusses it through nursery rhymes, childhood games, poetry, and even Dizzee Rascal. The play sold out completely for the three nights it ran. “It’s rare for an undergraduate student to have their work staged as part of a professional programme”, writes The University of Bristol’s web page on her performance. It was lauded by critics as a “witty and thought-provoking play”.

And guess who was in the audience that day, and had to pay for her ticket. Dr. Catherine Hindson, head of the Theater department, at the university, was quick to apologize for her words. She said:

“I’ve invited her to meet with me in September to talk through and get her feedback on changes we’ve made to the curriculum. She agreed her experience studying here was, on the whole, a very positive one, leading to many opportunities to showcase her talents.”

“The university has made a strong commitment to increasing diversity in its new strategy, and we’ve broadened out the curriculum significantly across the faculty of arts.”

Karma