OUTSTAGN/SPOT BITZ

Friday, July 18, 2025

MY EVENT TRAVELS FOR THE FIRST HALF OF 2025

PHOTOS BY MA'ATOLOGY

HEY OUTSTAGRS!

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN!

TIME TO GET ON STAGE!

It's been a minute since I chronicled events on my web-blog because of my duties producing my stage play The Goodlucks at the Hollywood Independent Theatre Festival in February and The Paintings of Lov-ve at the 2025 Hollywood Fringe Festival in June (along with covering and video reviewing stage plays between those months in the St Louis area for my Facebook page ).

Yet, during those times, I was able to attend three significant African American events as part of the media and as a spectator. Those events were: The 56th Annual NAACP Image Awards that were held Feb 22 at the Pasadena Civic Center, the 2025 BET Awards on June 9 at the Peacock Theater and parts of The Essence Festival of Culture held at The Ernest N. Morial Convention Center and the accompanied Essence Music Fest at The Caesar's Superdome July 5 and 6 (on the bday!) in New Orleans.

Below are pics from and a brief recap of those three events!

On Feb 21, I had gone to the NAACP Image Awards Lounge at the JW Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles to pick up my tickets to the Image Awards. There, I mixed and mingled with some of the media who were there to cover the awards and producers of the event! At the lounge, they also had after parties for each night leading up to the Image Awards for celebrities and VIP people to network (The lamb chops were Heavenly! LOL)

On Feb. 22, I picked up my ticket to the live show at the Pasadena Theater near the VIP area. Where I was standing, I could still see the rising smoke from the Pasadena Fires that happened in late January. It was a very eerie sight to see that, but as they say the show must go on.

As a media person, it was good to just be a spectator. Pictured is myself with the illustrious program for the event.

Here is a photo of where I started in the balcony area, but I was able to maneuver my way down to the lower left orchestra area just when Ledisi was about to sing a tribute to the people affected by the Altadena and Pasadena Fires.

After the Image Awards, I attended the afterparty, produced by Reganald Hudlin, that was held next door from the Civic Center. There, they had a televised special concert as a fundraiser for the victims of the fires.

On June 5, I was able to attend some of the BET Experience events prior to the awards ceremony on June 9. Pictured is myself in front of a bar area at the Waymaker's Men's Conference that was held at The Beehive by Solo Impact.

The Men's Summit brought out various male celebrities to speak to youth on various subjects such as men's health, fitness, religion and making positive choices. The panel I attended had panelists Michael Jai White, Skyh Black, Derek Luke, and David Banner.

One of the highlighted booth areas at the Convention Center was the Club Eden booth where stars from the show All The Queens Men (PICTURED Skyh Black greeting the packed crowd) greeted their fans as the dancers gave the audience a PG version of their dance routines--with their clothes on. The dancers also took photos with their fans afterwards. Mr. Black didn't dance, by the way. He blamed it on his bad knees. LOL

Then, on June 7, I checked in as a Seat Filler for one of the panel discussions that were held at The Los Angeles Convention Center.

Pictured is myself arriving for The 2025 BET Awards checking out the scene before entering with all the celebrities, VIPs and fashionistas and dapper dans heading to red carpet. It was talk from the BET Awards producers on whether they were cancelling the awards due to the Los Angeles protests by anti ICErs that were nearby downtown because of the ICE Raids that occurred days prior.

My seat was right behind the media area where the camera people were taping the show. I also got a moment to take a body shot of my outfit during the event in the lobby of the theatre. (Thanks to the security guy for taking the shot!)

This event, hosted by Kevin Hart, was more of a celebration of BET with it being 25 years of the award show highlighting such shows as 106 and Park and the Icon Awards going to Mariah Carey (who performed), Jamie Foxx, Kirk Franklin (who performed) and Snoop Dogg (who performed).

Next, was The Essence Festival!

Yours Truly in my cowboy hat ready to check out the Essence Music Fest at the Superdome on Saturday July 5 where acts like Buju Banton, 803 and Jill Scott performed.

It was reports that the Friday show with Lauryn Hill was not packed, but much to my experience, on Saturday, it was beyond packed. My seat was lower stage left and I was able to see everything going on as far as the attendees.

Pictured is myself in front of The Essence Film Festival area where various independent films from the Black Experience were highlighted and awarded for the directors of some of the films.

The ever popular Beauty Con area of Essence Fest was the highlight where hundreds of people stood in line to receive freebies of beauty products. I stood in one line and various samples were being handed to me without my even trying to get samples! LOL. The overall experience at the Convention Center was quite roomy and spaced out for attendees to walk around. It was a long carpeted walkway at the entrance to the end of the center and on the sides were the local vendors and various panel/stage areas where celebrities, politicians and business people talked about various topics. There were a plethora of food venues as well (The crawfish balls were delish!). And, yes, the controversial Target booth was there and was packed with people.

Later on that day, I was near the VIP area and was able to check out the last music fest on Sunday where I was able to check out Muni Long Dougie Fresh (with surprise guest Slick Rick), The Waiting To Exhale tribute from the soundtrack with Chant Moore, KeKe Palmer, and Yolanda Adams, and the Tribute to Quincy Jones led by Jermaine Dupri who dee-jayed and educated many on some of Quincy's produced songs. He also brought out to the stage the contemporaries of his songs including SWV and Al B Sure leading the Secret Garden Tribute with Tyrese and Robin Thicke. Besides the sound issues, the lineup of acts were entertaining.

I wanted to check out the last performance of Master P and his crew and finale act Boyz II Men, but, I left the Superdome to attend an after party where DJ Nice held a Club Quarantine After Dark at The Fillmore.

Before I left New Orleans back to St Louis on Monday July 7, I took a drive on Bourbon Street to see how it looks in the day time sans Mardis Gras time.

BELOW ARE SOME OF THOSE PICS:

Well, OUTSTAGRS, that was my journalistic journey of my event travels.

UNTIL THE NEXT STAGING!

Friday, May 30, 2025

MAATOLOGY PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS THE PAINTINGS OF LOV-VE@ STEPHANIE FEURY STUDIO THEATRE/HOLLYWOOD FRINGE FESTIVAL

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT: THE INSPIRATION

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

Jean-Michel Basquiat (December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the neo-expressionism movement.

Born in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City, the second of four children to Matilde Basquiat (née Andrades, 1934–2008) and Gérard Basquiat (1930–2013).^[2] He had an older brother, Max, who died shortly before Jean-Michel's birth, and two younger sisters, Lisane (b. 1964) and Jeanine (b. 1967). His father was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and his mother was born in Brooklyn to Puerto Rican parents. He was raised Catholic.

Basquiat first achieved notoriety in the late 1970s as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al Diaz, writing enigmatic epigrams all over Manhattan, particularly in the cultural hotbed of the Lower East Side where rap, punk, and street art coalesced into early hip-hop culture.

In May 1978, Basquiat and Diaz began spray painting graffiti on buildings in Lower Manhattan. Working under the pseudonym SAMO, they inscribed poetic and satirical advertising slogans such as "SAMO© AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO GOD."

By the early 1980s, his paintings were being exhibited in galleries and museums internationally. At 21, Basquiat became the youngest artist to ever take part in Documenta in Kassel, Germany. At 22, he became one of the youngest to exhibit at the Whitney Biennial in New York.

While not publicly identifying as bisexual, he had relationships with both men and women. His former girlfriend, Suzanne Mallouk, described his sexuality as "multichromatic," indicating attraction to various people regardless of gender.

He began snorting heroin during his career. In the last 18 months of his life, Basquiat became something of a recluse. His continued drug use is thought to have been a way of coping after the death of his friend Andy Warhol in February 1987.Despite attempts at sobriety, Basquiat died at the age of 27 of a heroin overdose at his home on Great Jones Street in Manhattan on August 12, 1988.

_INFO FROM WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Jean-Michel Basquiat's muse and long-term partner was Suzanne Mallouk, a waitress and aspiring artist he met at Night Birds bar in 1981. They had an on-again, off-again relationship until 1983, remaining friends until his death in 1988. Mallouk supported him financially while he focused on painting, and he later referred to her as "Venus" in his artwork, including "A Panel of Experts".

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Madonna had a brief but intense romantic relationship in 1982 when both were on the cusp of fame. Their relationship, though short-lived, had a significant impact on their careers, with Madonna's music and Basquiat's art being influenced by their time together. The relationship ended badly, with Basquiat reportedly demanding the return of paintings he had given her and then painting them black.

Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat were influential artists who collaborated on numerous paintings in the 1980s, blending their distinct styles and creating a unique visual language. Warhol, a leading figure of Pop Art, and Basquiat, a rising star of Neo-Expressionism, initially met in 1982 and became close friends. Their collaboration involved taking turns adding layers to canvases, often incorporating Warhol's Pop Art symbols and Basquiat's Neo-Expressionist style.

DIRECTOR'S

NOTES

This production was a labor of love...literally, it was. The Paintings of Lov-ve started out as sort of a pass-the-time-away thing when I was a news journalist at The St Louis American Newspaper one month in 2003 and co wrote a draft with a colleague at the newspaper.

Well, after a couple of starts and stops for a few weeks with a cast and rehearsals, the project was put on the shelf due to the original co writer moving to Los Angeles....Fast forward to 2020 (17 years later) and the bug to bring this to the stage was becoming a thorn waiting to be unthorned. So, I decided to dust off the old draft, add in another cowriter, Andrea Carlton and auditioned a cast (which consisted of Mike Billips who is reprising his role in the 2025 cast ) and eventually produced a first ever live virtual production of this show in the summer of 2020 through Hollywood Fringe's Stay at Home Series as well as The Minnesota and Orlando Fringe Festivals.

As a result, the show (which was initially titled "3 Way Lovve") was nominated for a 2021 Young-Howze Award for Best Long Zoom Play. Well, now in 2025, the play is finally getting its deserved moment on a physical stage after over 20 years of germinating, circulating and boiling into what has conceived to be and testament to tenacity and dedication regarding bringing a piece of art to eyes and ears of creativity.

I hope The Paintings of Lov-ve not only tells a great story about a creative's journey into what ones art can do to ones soul when its compromised and commercialized, but as to how all of us becomes affected by our talents as it relates to who we love, who we desire, who we lust and who we would live for.

-Ma'at Atkins

Director, The Paintings of Lov-ve

May 2025

ADMINISTRATION

ARTISTSIC STAFF....MAATOLOGY PRODUCTIONS

Founder and Producing Director Ma'at Atkins

Production Manager Jaron Hicks

Co-Director Andrea (Jacobs) Carlton

Production Assistant Brea McCormick

Production Notes Coordinator Tondra Mosely

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFF

Accountant Manager Leanne Joshua