This event will take place in English. Hybrid event: In-person open to current NYU Community (advance registration, NYU ID, screener pass required); Zoom open to general public.
RSVP In-person (NYU Community ONLY) here
RSVP Zoom Here
Professor of French Literature, Thought and Culture Judith Miller and NYU visiting professor Romuald Fonkoua are joined by director/actor Lanise Antoine Shelley for a conversation about celebrated poet and activist Aimé Césaire's play Une Tempête. The play strikingly adapts Shakespeare’s version, viewing it through a postcolonial lens.
There will be a staged reading of Une Tempête, directed by Lanise Antoine Shelley, at the French Institute/Alliance Française Monday, on February 28th (more information here).
Judith Miller is a specialist in contemporary French and Francophone theatre. She has published widely on theater history and production (most recently on the Théâtre du Soleil, and the Ivorian writer Koffi Kwahulé). She has translated some 30 plays from the French (including two plays by Haitian author Guy Régis Jr. last year). She has also directed with students some 25 plays in French, including Césaire’s Une Tempête. She is currently working on an anthology of Francophone African plays for Bucknell University Press.
Romuald Fonkoua is a specialist in contemporary Francophone literature. He has published on African and Caribbean authors including Aimé Césaire, Édouard Glissant, Léopold Sédar Senghor, Frantz Fanon, Mongo Beti, etc. Recently he has edited the private correspondence of René Maran (the first Black Goncourt Prize) and Paul Manuel Gahisto. He is currently a visiting professor in the NYU Department of French Literature, Thought and Culture.
Lanise Antoine Shelley (she/her) is the Artistic Director of The House. She is also a Haitian actress, director and playwright. As an actress, she is known for Chicago Fire, Empire, Chicago Med, Discovery World, Macbeth HD, and Goodman Theatre’s School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play. Selected directing credits include Pretended (Paramount Theater), Blue Man Manakin (Rising Sun Company), Rastus and Hattie, Black and Blue (16th St), Identity Lab (Lookingglass Theatre), The Tenant (Akvavit Theatre), RefuSHE Project (Voices & Faces Project), Rumors (DePaul University), and a staged reading of The Convert (Stratford Shakespeare Festival). Shelley hosts the podcast When They Were Young: Amplifying Voices of Adoptees available on all major platforms including her website. She holds an MFA from ART/MXAT at Harvard University, a certificate in Classical Theatre from BADA. Fellowships: Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s Chicago Fellow 2016, Victory Gardens Theater’s Directing Fellow 2019, and the Drama League Classical Directing Fellow 2021.
