Powerful Long Ladder

Memory Pop Up!
May 22nd, 2025
Activist Samaria Rice of Tamir Rice Foundation visits Powerful Long Ladder The Ultimate Reach outreach program 🎭 at Milkovich Middle School in Cleveland's Maple Heights.

The Malcolm X Visionary Award Recipient
SAVE THE DATE 🙏 2.21.2027🙏

CONGRATULATIONS to Powerful Long Ladder founder, Terrence Spivey who will be the recipient of The Malcolm X Visionary Award by Project Beautiful at their second annual Ancestral Remembrance Gala on Sunday, February 21, 2027 at the beautiful Maltz Performing Arts Center here in Cleveland, Ohio. On behalf of Spivey, we would like to thank Project Beautiful for this gracious honor. 🙏❤️

Will keep you posted on the time of the event.

About Project Beautiful
https://projectbeautifulme.com/

About Maltz Performing Arts Center
https://case.edu/maltzcenter/about-venue-0

The country's oldest black newspaper, The Philadelphia Tribune picked up The New York Times article by Erik Piepenburg which covers the genesis and the first three city U.S. tour of Italy's production of August Wilson's JITNEY.🎭

https://www.phillytrib.com/lifestyle/august-wilson-like-you-ve-never-heard-him-before-in-italian/article_5b9d9533-6f52-4981-b15e-566896a2e142.html

Italy's Italian JITNEY first U.S. Tour in America was the Midwest. 🔥🎭
ST. LOUIS The Black Rep May 1-3
CLEVELAND Powerful Long Ladder May 5-6
PITTSBURGH Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company/August Wilson House May 8-10

The Second U.S. Tour is Gulf Coast, Fall 2026

August Wilson Like You’ve Never Heard Him Before: In Italian August Wilson was a singularly American playwright who wrote about grifters and soothsayers, loners and anchors navigating life in Pittsburgh.

Why I Cried Watching August Wilson's "Jitney" in Italy— And Why Seeing It in Pittsburgh This Weekend Will Be Like Watching Shakespeare at The Globe The Pulitzer Prize winner's plays have been performed around the world, but on May 8th, the Italian version of his first play will come home to The Hill where August grew up.

“Theater is not for punks, okay? It is for the strong,” says Taraji P. Henson. Now that the 55-year-old actress is taking curtain calls at the Ethel Barrymore Theater, you get the sense that being onstage represents a much-needed reprieve from Tinseltown politics for her. (Though maybe not for long: a movie adaptation of ‘Joe Turner’s Come and Gone’ could soon be in the works — part of why she wanted to be in Debbie Allen’s revival of the August Wilson play to begin with.)

Henson is glad she’s on Broadway now, calling it a “testament” of all of the work that she’s been doing. “You got to get on a plane, you got to drive, train, bus, horse, I don’t know, to come here,” she says. “And they’re doing it because of the trust that the audience has. They know if Taraji P. Henson’s name is on it, they are going to get some feels. That’s my frustration with the business side of Hollywood. They like to jump on what’s hot. Bitch, I’ve been hot! I stay hot!”

Henson reflects on her career — including the ‘Empire’ scene she said “Hell the f**k no" to, the historical figure she'd like to play in a movie next, and more: https://nymag.visitlink.me/xmR1py

Powerful Long Ladder had the honor of awarding the Great Stephen McKinley Henderson "The Lloyd Richards" in Cleveland!

Legendary stage, film, television and Wilsonian actor Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences, Lincoln, Dune, Man on the Inside) prepares for a television interview on Cleveland's WKYC Channel 3 - Cleveland with local renown/celebrity anchor Danita Harris.

He was in town to attend Powerful Long Ladder theatre company's presentation of Italy's Sardegna Teatro and La Piccionaia groundbreaking, visceral production of August Wilson's JITNEY, in Italian, directed by Renzo Carbonera, on Wednesday, May 6th, at Treelawn Hall in the Waterloo Arts District. The play ran May 5th-6th. After the show, he was given "The Lloyd Richards".

The award is named after the late, renowned director, Lloyd Richards, the first black director on Broadway with the 1959 landmark production of 'A Raisin in the Sun' and the man who discovered August Wilson.

THE NEW YORK TIMES
In three U.S. cities, a new production of the playwright’s cabdriver drama “Jitney” will be imported from Italy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/30/theater/august-wilson-italian-jitney.html

American Theatre magazine Color Of Change Prairie View A&M University

An excerpt from Cleveland's The Land article by Christopher Johnston titled Coming to America, details the journey on August Wilson's groundbreaking JITNEY, in Italian to Cleveland, Ohio.

Thank You, American Theatre magazine

Cleveland's Powerful Long Ladder is proud to be one one of the first three theatre companies to import August Wilson's groundbreaking JITNEY, in Italian, directed by Renzo Carbonera to the U.S.. The Black Rep in St. Louis kicked off the successful tour, May 1-3.

We just ended a blazing two night performance with Jitney, in Italian on May 5th-6th at Treelawn Hall in Cleveland's growing Waterloo Arts District. In addition, we honored legendary Wilsonian Warrior, Stephen McKinley Henderson (Lincoln, Fences) with "The Lloyd Richards" for his monumental achievement in stage, television, film and his dedication to the community.

For those who missed this amazing production in Cleveland and St. Louis, Jitney, in Italian closes it's three city U S. run in Wilson's native home, Pittsburgh, May 8th-10th at Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre Company in collaboration with August Wilson House in the historical Hill District.

August Wilson Like You’ve Never Heard Him Before: In Italian (Gift Article) In three U.S. cities, a new production of the playwright’s cabdriver drama “Jitney” will be imported from Italy.