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Shá Cage '95 and the members of her theater company work collectively to create, secure funding for and produce plays that address sometimes controversial social issues.
There's The Bi Show, for instance, which addresses the experiences of queer women of color; or The Menstruation Project, which draws from interviews with more than 30 women to discuss the cross-cultural experience of menses; or Making Medea, a play about infanticide, poverty and racism. After every performance, there's a facilitated audience discussion, an experience that Cage finds invaluable--and directly related to her personal career goal of "engaging, uplifting and giving voice to the community."
'Activism is at the core of who I am, and so that becomes the core of my theater experience as well.' |
"Theater becomes the tool to reach other people," the actor-playwright-poet says. "Activism is at the core of who I am, and so that becomes the core of my theater experience as well. During those discussions, seeing audiences standing there with tears in their eyes saying, 'Oh my God, that's my story'--this is why I do what I do. It makes my work worthwhile."
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Shá Cage '95, above, in the lead role of Suzan-Lori Parks' "Venus" at the Frank Theatre in Minneapolis in 2006; below, as Missy in Ossie Davis' "Purlie Victorious," directed by Dawn Renee Jones at Macalester in 1995.
©STAR-TRIBUNE/MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL |
A well-known figure in the Twin Cities' spoken-word, hip-hop and theater communities, Cage has appeared in numerous stage productions, feature films and poetry slams. She is a founder and managing artistic director of MaMa mOsAiC Theater, an independent theater company devoted to nurturing the talents--and telling the stories--of women of color. (The group's name--and its funky spelling--is intended to illustrate the spicy cultural mix its work creates.)
After nearly a decade working in theater, Cage credits much of her success to the entrepreneurial part of her personality that understands finance, that knows how to write a killer grant proposal and can run a small theater company with DIY flair. At Macalester, she majored in communication studies and minored in economics and history.
"The idea was that I would eventually own my own theater. A business education would allow me to be able to do all my own books and accounting. The theater work spoke to my passion for the arts. Communications connected with my interest in writing. In the back of my head I always thought I would play it safe--even if I loved the theater. I could always have skills I could fall back on. You have to be organized and resourceful to survive as an independent artist."
 Cage may have inherited her independent spirit from her mother, who moved Sh‡ and her siblings to Minneapolis from their native Natchez, Miss. "She wanted us to go to college and she knew the schools were better here." Cage, who attended Washburn High School in Minneapolis, was the first of her family to graduate from a four-year college.
At Macalester, she proved that she had some of her mother's moxie, co-founding Sistas In Struggle, an all-women of color theater company. "We had a lot to say about the world we lived in," Cage says. "It prepared us for life in a way we didn't realize until years after. It made me realize that theater can be a powerful tool for social change."
Andy Steiner '90
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