Monroe Dispatch - No Struggle, No Progress

The Grambling State University Department Visual and Performing Arts is set to perform a fictional imagining of a well-known, actual story in the play “Knock Me a Kiss,” which will open at 7:00 PM, Tuesday, November 15, 2022 at the Floyd L. Sandle Theatre inside the Conrad Hutchinson Performing Arts Center. Based on what was supposed to be the wedding of the century, at least in terms of African-American advancement, the play will also be performed at 7:00 PM, Wednesday, November 16 - Friday, November 18, 2022 with an additional matinee performance set for 10:00 AM, Friday, November 18, 2022. GSU students can attend the play for free with a valid student ID. General admission tickets will cost $10 for adults and $5 for children 12 and under. Set in the spring of 1928 at the height of the Harlem Renaissance, the six-actor play concerns events when Yolande DuBois, the pampered only daughter of scholar and activist W.E.B. DuBois, married up-and-coming poet Countee Cullen, a suitor handpicked by her well-known father. While the wedding was attended by thousands of well-wishers went off without a hitch, Yolande soon filed for divorce as the marriage, seen as a triumph of pomp and pageantry, ended up failing to be a true union of man and woman.