ORLANDO, Fla. – This Orlando-based, Black-led entertainment group is dancing like everybody’s watching in the final show of its inaugural season.
MAC Boys Entertainment, a company designed to fill the void of Black representation in the theatre world, is putting on “Mackossa,” a show which takes audiences through an evolution of dance in its many forms.
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The entertainment group’s co-creators and the initials behind MAC—Maurice Mallard, Arius West and Christopher Payen— directed this piece, written by Mallard and choregraphed by West.
According to the company’s website, the show “highlights cultural and artistic expression through movement and story.”
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It’s the last show in MAC Boys Entertainment’s first season.
The company was created after the trio met at the University of Central Florida and started discussing their shared vision for the future of the arts and entertainment industry.
“I got tired of just being limited, not by my skill, not by my talent, not by my willingness to learn, but simply because of the color of my skin,” Mallard said in a previous interview with News 6.
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He said the company’s mission is to paint the stage with the whole spectrum of BIPOC shades and colors so that people like him won’t be relegated to roles based on skin tone.
Mallard and the team hope to eventually take classic plays and musicals, like “The Music Man” and “Death of a Salesman,” and show them through a news lens, transforming the traditionally white Harold Hills and Willy Lomans into characters more accessible to the Black and Latino communities.
“Mackossa” runs Friday through Sunday from Feb. 17-26 at the Orlando Repertory Theatre. For more information and to buy tickets, click here.
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