When I visit Ayodele Nzinga, founder and director of the Lower Bottom Playaz theater troupe, in late July, she’s directing rehearsal for their latest production, August Wilson’s Radio Golf. The play, which runs through Aug. 27, is the troupe’s first formal production since the start of the pandemic. And while the show closes the company’s 24th season, it also opens a new chapter.
Ayodele Nzinga Opens Curtain at BAM House, a New Home for Black Arts
Ayodele Nzinga, Oakland poet, playwright, community activist and the city’s inaugural poet laureate, pictured in downtown Oakland in 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)
“It feels stupendous. I’m not even gonna front,” says Nzinga, who is also Oakland’s first poet laureate. “I’m having the time of my life. I feel like a lot of what it took to be right here isn’t glamorous or sexy work.”
“Right here” is in the newly named BAM (Black Arts Movement) House on 1540 Broadway in downtown Oakland — a 100-seat black-box theater space formerly known as PianoFight (and before that, known as The Flight Deck, before their closure in 2020). After years of renting out space from the previous tenants, Nzinga’s nonprofit, the Black Arts Movement and Business District Community Development Corporation, now holds the lease.
When Nzinga and the Lower Bottom Playaz got word from PianoFight in February that it would be closing down, Nzinga’s first thought was how they might rent the space through the end of the year. “That blossomed into a conversation about, why not BAMBD CDC take over this space, and have its first official headquarters,” Nzinga says.
In 2016, the Oakland City Council designated sections (PDF) of downtown and West Oakland as the Black Arts Movement and Business District. In response, Nzinga founded her community development corporation, BAMBD CDC, to help sustain local artists and ensure they’re able to live and work in Oakland. But neither the district nor the nonprofit have had a formal space for artists or the public to visit. Now, they have BAM House — and Nzinga’s been making the house a home.
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“It was a bit ragged on the edges when we came in,” Nzinga says. “So [now], you’ll notice were just in the most pristine black box ever. And we thought that the outside of the building needed to make a statement.”
The exterior has been painted red, black and green with a shield on top that has the organization’s initials.
“The weapons that cross the shield are a paintbrush and a pen. We just made this sacred space right here on Broadway,” Nzinga says.
And right on time for the BAMBDFEST Biennial, a month-long festival which includes the production of Radio Golf, and various other theater and literary events across various venues in Oakland. It all culminates in an official black carpet ribbon-cutting ceremony for BAM House on Sept. 1.
“It is the platform for so much more potential,” Nzinga says. “Now, being in the building, it’d be nice to buy it. We want to turn this into a cultural center as opposed to a building that we have to rent out in order to pay the rent.”
She cites Eastside Arts Alliance in East Oakland as a model for what she hopes BAM House will represent for downtown and West Oakland.
“This is a space for dreamers,” Nzinga says. “Maybe this is a place to train replacements so that we make sure that there’s an after. After me, after the Lower Bottom Playaz. There’s an after in Oakland for people of color and artists.”
The BAMBDFEST Biennial runs through Sept. 1. For details, click here. The Lower Bottom Playaz production of ‘Radio Golf’ plays through Aug. 27. For ticket info, click here.
