Out The Box: A 3 Woman 1 Woman Show

Three women, one night, one show the play Out The Box was held Oct. 19 in Richardson Audotorium in front of hundreds of LU students and faculty who came to support the three talented ladies of KaShKe who gave an amazing performance with grace and attitude!

KaShKe is an independent entertainment production company comprised of Chicagoan Kathryn J. Taylor, the Bay Area's Shonelle Blake, and Jefferson City native Keena Ferguson who met in acting classes.

"We all knew we wanted to do the same thing which was a one woman show, so we thought why not do a one woman show together? That's where the saying came from 'a three woman one-woman show," said Blake.

The play was about thinging and steping outside the box of society's stereotypes of African American women in show biz, everything from headshots, auditions, sexual orientation and income. The perforance wasmade to break the chain of assimilation. The three young women did just that by bringing the key that unlocked the lies of society and allowed the audience to view them as the multi-talented ladies they are, whereas Hollywood may not.

In a short skit, which opened the show called "What do you see?" each woman stood in what seemed to be their own box that represented each women's stereotypical life they face daily in Hollywood. Talking about everything from skin color to hair texture to just finally being invisible and boxed by the industry.

Following the skit, there was a brief video documentary with the ladies telling how they met and their perspective on the Hollywood game. Following there was a side-splitting comedy skit called Free your Fettish. This short recital touched on topics of people's wildest fettishes with such memorable characters as the girl next door, the lesbian couple, and the religios bible toting Christian. Because this segment of the show allowed the ladies to be in the audience, it had the audience in a total uproar from the beginning to the end. Hoots and hollers came from the crowd as if they too had the same fettishes!

That wasn't the only thing that held the audience's attention; the individual monologues performed 'Good Mama', 'Thug Angel', and 'A Dancer's Choice' all had the audience gripped with interest and intensity.

Later the ladies performed reverse casting monologues called 'Mandy Rudy', 'Hebrew', and 'Comedy Dreamin' where they all stepped out of their boxes and became something more than what they were labeled, they showed all of us in superb form performances of the roles the industry said they couldn't play.

The show ended with an intimate conversation with the audience about why they still pursue careers in Hollywood despite the struggle of being boxed. It was a thoughtful and passionate declaration of their love for what they do and their desire to share it with the world, even if it means fighting the status quo and overcoming racial, gender, beauty, and age obstacles to do it.

The ladies finally graced the students with a question and answer dialogue where the students could ask questions about everything from the myths of Hollywood to staying grounded spiritually. The girls said that being raised in the church was their main foundation.

We wish them the best on their college tour and were lucky they stopped in with us.


- The Lincoln Clarion

Just when you think no good theater exists in Los Angeles, despite the city's status as the enertainment epicenter, you run into the delightfully entertaining Out the Box: A 3 Woman 1 Woman Show. With original material written, produced, and directed by the show's 3 starlets - Kathryn J. Taylor, Shonelle Blake, And Keena Ferguson - Out the Box stimulates as much as it entertains, inducing laughter just as easily as it provokes thought.

The women use the show's numerous skits to showcase their ample talent, with each actress allowed equal airtime so as to not produce a standout star. And truthfully, there is no standout because this chain has no weak links - each woman is as talented, beautiful, and able as the one standing next to her. The show is a rare find: a steak in a sea of hamburgers.

The skits touch on a multitude of topics and aim to deconstruct black stereotypes by exploring them. They take caricatures of the gangsta-bitch, homeless panhandler, and young single mother and humanize them with illuminating back-stories; an approach that is very out of the box. Their comedic chops are equally impressive with side splitting scenes of the oversexed sex therapist, horny virgin and standup comedienne on display. In between scenes and set changes are pre-taped skits that highlight the stars' singing and dancing abilities.

With this cornucopia of talent it's surprising that Taylor, Blake, and Ferguson aren't the big time celebrieies they long to be, but perhaps their newly formed company, KaShKe Productions, will change all that. If Out The Box (their first production) is any indication of what is to come, these ladies should have fruitful careers in front of them. The only downside is that the play, which was running at the McCadden Place Theatre, closed on March 26th, leaving Angelinos with no more opportunities to witness its splendor. Jocelyn R. coleman of Favor PR says it might make a comeback this August. We hope it does. See ad for info. - Metro LA

Besides being good friends, Kathryn J. Taylor, Shonelle Blake, And Keena Ferguson are actresses on a mission: to make Hollywood take notice. Together they formed KaShKe Productions (a name derived from the first two letters of their names) to let Hollywood decisionmakers know that they are capable of playing more than just baby mommas, angry black women and around the way girls.

"The three of us ere trying to plan this martini party, and in the midst of our conversation we shared with each other that we each thought about doing a one woman show" Blake recalls. "We decided, Why don't we just do it together? Why don't we just take all this energy that we are putting into this martini party to have fun and work together in moving our art forward?" Each actress tapped into her personal resources and the result was their first production, Out the Box: A 3 Woman 1 Woman Show.

The 90-minute show is a compilation of comedy, dancing, and jultimedia, and showcases the three women's versatile acting skills. Often told that they weren't right for a part, KaShKe decided to fight back and prove that they are more tha capable of playing a wide range of roles. Each actress has come across different obstacles in her rise to the top. For Blake it was getting representation; for Taylor the political networking game, and for Ferguson - who could almost pass for Jada Pinkett Smith's twin - it was not knowing wh y she didn't get the part when she felt she owned it.

"You really feel that you're doing everything right and you're still not getting it. There's no one there to tell you, so you don't know how to fix it. You really have to look inside yourself to fix it and figure out what's going to work," Ferguson says.

Taylor's hilarious OTB skit Free Your Fetish has her playing the chocolate version of sex therapist Dr. Ruth. As Felicia Greasydick, who helps people accept their often disturbing sexual needs, she sees herself as Harriet Tubman releasing her people from the chains that bind.

The Kansas City native is able to switch from the over-the-top therapist to a scared young mother in Good Mama, about a woman who's trying to survive.

"That was me trying to play a woman who had issues in her life revolving around her children, drugs and alcohol," Taylor explains. "I wanted to figure out a way to touch someone of a lower economic status and maybe what they were going to be and still try to be a strong woman."

Blake goes from being the leader of a gang in Thug Angel, and later on transforms herself into a no-nonsense business woman with dreams of doing stand-up.

Ferguson touches a lot of nerves in her poignant skit A Dancer's Choice, evoking a sincere vulnerability that can't be ignored. "I wanted to do something different that I could use my dancing and something that has to do with the choices that we have to make sometimes for our careers or what we aspire to be" she says.

KaShKe's future is looking good. The actresses plan to take it on both a citywide tour and the college circuit. also int he works are film projects and other productions of the same concept using different actors of different ethnicities.

I would like the audience to get the message that we're serious about what we are doing, that we're willing to sacrifice, risk failure, risk losing money, to do this," Blake says. "Our opportunity to share our gift with the world means so much to us that we're willing to put all this up."

Out The Box: A 3 Woman 1 Woman Show plays through March 26th at The McCadden Place Theatre. - NoHo - LA

"Out the Box: A 3 Woman 1 Woman Show" features three of the most multi-talented young actresses currently out there in little theatres, hoping a 90-minute showcase of their talents will lead to bigger and better parts in film and television. Kathryn J. Taylor, Shonelle Blake, and Keena Ferguson make up KaShKe Productions, whose aim is to identify, develop and produce original projects and events. The three actors have written and directed their own material.

They stand on metal boxes and say repeatedly "What do you see?" Then in the next 90 minutes they prove they can be any character in any si tuation with clever costume changes, carefully observiced body language, and a change of voice inflection, to create a host of characters, none recognizable as themselves.

Between costume changes, one of the videos shown is one of the three of them, ostensibly in an interview where, by their response, they intelligence and awareness in an articulate way. A humorous highlight was the "Free Your Fetish" skit, written by Andre Akil. Taylor is the celebrity sex author and asking questions of her are an assortment of quirky characters played by Blake and Ferguson, completely disguised. After several strange fetish inquiries, Taylor is turned on by two lesbians, who with she then shares the fetish of being whipped.

To show their dramatic side: Taylor is the "Good Momma" at some government office where she is hysterically fights to keep her baby; Thug Angel is Blake as a tough looking gang leader who warns of the dangers of street life and in "A Dancer's Choice" keena shows her dancing ability and how her hopes for success have been dashed. Other memorable characters are that of the enterprising homeless woman, (Taylor), Mandy Rudy (Ferguson) and the bright-eyed Blake as a sophisticated stand-up comedienne with amusing sex oriented material.

"Out The Box" finished performing on March 26th at the McCadden Place Theatre. - The Tolucan Times