Written and Performed by Gerrad Alex Taylor

Director: Nigel Semaj

Assistant Director: La’Trelle Jamez

Stage Manager: Megan Eich

Scenic Designer: Oscar Escobedo

Properties Designer: Tessara Morgan - Farley

Sound Designer: Cheryl J. Williams

Lighting Designer: Dean Leong

Projections Designer: Nigel Semaj

A fierce and funny solo show devised by Perisphere Co-Artistic Director, Gerrad Alex Taylor. I Know How To Curse: a re-blackening of Shakespeare confronts the legacy of minstrelsy in American theater. Using the structure of a minstrel show to critique the casting politics of the classical canon, the play interrogates how Black actors are seen—and unseen—onstage. A radical blend of Shakespeare, satire, and self-reflection, it reclaims space for Black artists in the roles we’re too often denied.

Part manifesto, part mirror, and fully unflinching, this play is a reclamation—a re-blackening—of Shakespeare and the stages that keep rewriting the same story.

“One leaves with the sense that Taylor and Semaj could mount a full production of Henry IV that would demand attention.”

 —Nick Cherone (Theatre Review of ‘I Know How To Curse: a re-blackening of shakespeare’ at Perisphere Theater) 

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“Already just a few minutes into this production, Taylor and director Nigel Semaj have drawn on a series of loaded images — the puffy white gloves of Mickey Mouse, and other references to minstrelsy or blackface. The theatrical aesthetic of this world premiere production at Perisphere Theater — where Taylor is co-artistic director — is deliberate and direct.”

—Nick Cherone (Theatre Review of ‘I Know How To Curse: a re-blackening of shakespeare’ at Perisphere Theater) 

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“Under Nigel Semaj’s direction, Taylor has crafted a world that feels cartoony, surreal, and human all at once.”

—Daniella Ignacio (D.C. Theater Arts) 

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“For the rest of its brisk 90-minute runtime, I Know How to Curse continues to expand its theatrical vocabulary. There’s a Looney Tunes cat-and-mouse chase between The Tempest’s Caliban and Prospero, the latter cast as an Elmer Fudd to the former’s Bugs Bunny. All this culminates in a soliloquy from Caliban, chained in Prospero’s cell. Here, Taylor’s performance, Dean Leong’s vivid lighting design, and Semaj’s direction converge into something strikingly assured. The stage, once spare, now feels fully realized and theatrical. The man who began the evening in tuxedo tails, tentatively playing Beethoven on a clunky keyboard, now brings a different kind of music to “the classics” — this re-blackening of Shakespeare is textured, grounded, and unmistakably on Taylor’s own terms.”

-Nick Cherone (Theatre Review of ‘I Know How To Curse: a re-blackening of shakespeare’ at Perisphere Theater)