Jackson Free Press

"Thousand Kites"

Why's a conversation about prison called kites? Kite is a slang term for communications from prison. "Thousand Kites," a stage reading and theater screening, prepares audience members for a discussion about the prison industrial complex and its effect on urban and rural communities. With nationally acclaimed scholars and theater artists participating, the purpose of the project is to bring issues of the criminal justice system to the forefront for discussion.

Carlton Turner, one of the founders of M.U.G.A.B.E.E., says: "Everybody, no matter where you come from, has some type of contact with the prison industrial complex. Whether you have a family member or friend who's been to prison, you've been robbed, or you've gone through the system yourself, everyone has a connection. This is not about abolishing prisons or the system, but more about how they impact the communities."

"Thousand Kites" debuts in the McCoy Auditorium on Jackson State's Campus at 6 p.m. Refreshments will be served, and the production is free to the public.

"I'm Not Rappaport"

Written by Herb Gardner, and once performed on Broadway, "I'm Not Rappaport" is about two old men, one black, the other white, who frequented New York's Central Park. Nat, the chatty Jewish retiree, and Midge, the superintendent of a posh apartment complex, are the unlikely octogenarian heroes and antagonists in the play, who can hardly live with, or without one another as they battle growing older, or as they call it "abortion at the other end."

The play, performed by the Clinton Brick Street Players, runs Oct. 20-22 and 26-28 in the Old Clinton Junior High School Auditorium on Fairmont Drive in Clinton at 7 p.m., except on Sunday, at 2 p.m.

"Fiddler on the Roof"

Belhaven College Theatre presents "Fiddler on the Roof" this fall. This musical, originally opening on Broadway in 1964, is widely known. Even if you don't know what it's about, you've heard of it.

The story centers around Tevye, the milkman, a Jewish peasant in pre-revolutionary Russia, his daughters and their attempts to maintain familial and religious traditions while simultaneously adjusting to new societal pressures. Still, the show is laughable, tender and sentimental.

Belhaven's staging of the "Fiddler" runs Wednesday, Nov. 8, through Saturday, Nov. 11, in the Flexible Theatre at the Center for the Arts beginning each night at 7:30 p.m. General admission is $10; $5, students/children/seniors.