The Columbus Black Theatre Festival (CBTF) celebrates its seventh year this July. As an African American playwright myself, my goal for the CBTF is to showcase original plays by other Black playwrights – especially new playwrights – to encourage them and others to tell our stories so that our generation can leave our future generations a blueprint of our lives as we lived them in our time.

When I first started the CBTF there were those who wanted the “Black” removed from the name, said it would be offensive to some races of people. My response was that only Black people were concerned about what others thought when the focus is put on their race. Columbus, Ohio has a wide variety of festivals throughout the summer. We have an Asian Festival, a German Festival, an Italian Festival and so many other festivals. Why can’t we have a Black Festival?

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My earliest memory of Comfest was probably the Summer of 2000. I was in the process of wrapping up a degree at Ohio State and living at a place on Tompkins Street. I was sort of dragooned into going by the guys who lived next door, who were more in tune with things. At that point I was unaware that Comfest – or Goodale Park for that matter – even existed.

I remember that we parked illegally in the Big Bear parking lot on Neil Avenue, which made me nervous. I think that it was either dark or getting dark when we arrived, and that I was pretty disoriented. The food stalls on Goodale Street seemed to come out of nowhere. I was fairly quickly pulled over to the main stage to see a band called the Jive Turkeys who were closing out the festival. Despite my bewildered state, the band blew me away. They were truly incredible, ending their set with Sly Stone’s “Hot Fun in the Summertime.”

The Wallis Studio Ensemble’s The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a stage renditiion of Douglas Adams’ sci fi send-up that has been adapted for radio, books, television and the movies. This fast-moving 90 minute version minus intermission is performed by around 10 youthful, colorfully costumed cast members. While today’s auds are used to state of the art CGI, Galaxy deploys low tech special effects on the mostly bare boards of the Lovelace Studio Theater. The FX include puppetry and masks by Alex Sheldon and Bosco Flanagan’s lighting design, which would have warmed the cockles of Bill Graham’s heart at Fillmore West rock concerts. Speaking of music, there is a little bit of live accordion and piano playing by Sheldon during the show, as well as recordings of songs such as Disco Inferno.

Testimony before the Ohio legislature on House Bill 6, Ohio’s nuclear and coal plant bailout bill which ironically also cuts off funds for renewable energies.

Is Ohio's legislature declaring a state of atomic socialism?

It seems poised for a Soviet gouging of some $3 billion over the next ten years to bail out two dirty, dangerous, decayed Chernobyl-ready atomic reactors that are falling apart. Neither can compete in the free markets so many Buckeyes profess to love.

The legislature proposes this $3 billion bailout while trashing some $4 billion in private capital. That money wants to build thousands of wind turbines and create tens of thousands of jobs, generating safe clean energy far cheaper than those radioactive "mistakes by the lake." The fast-rising turbines would lower electric rates and bring in private development capital, not drain it out of the public pocket.  

The astonishing turn to Soviet nuclear economics comes as FirstEnergy's top executives pocket some $25 million in annual "salaries" while they spent $3 million to "lobby" the Legislature.