Where Stanislavski Meets Fanon & the Actor is a Liberator
Kangalee Arts Ensemble, Inc.
MY DYING CITY VOL. II PLAYED AT THE AMERICAN THEATRE OF ACTORS IN NYC IN JANUARY 2026 TO GREAT ACCLAIM!
“A MASTERPIECE that looks at profound grief both cultural and personal…” -
- JIM CATAPANO, NYC ARTS INDYPENDENT
“MY DYING CITY VOL. II (The Social Justice Suicide Hour”) is a “dark night of the soul” tragedy about the modern radical Left’s grief, torment and disillusionment in America, 2026. The Kangalee Arts’ latest tragedy is a “dark night of the soul” drama that nods to traditions established by Bernard Shaw, The Group Theater, The Living Theater, Arthur Miller, Lorraine Hansberry Amiri Baraka, and Tony Kushner. [Photo: Tessa Blythe Young]
“My Dying City Vol. II is…a riveting, thought-provoking play for these complicated times… in America’s current dilemma…The Kangalee Arts Ensemble responds to James Baldwin’s belief that consciousness breeds constant rage, drawing inspiration from socially engaged ensembles like the Group Theater, Living Theater, and the Black Arts Movement.
— Ronal E. Scott, The Amsterdam News
Left to Right: Che Ayende, Shannon Mastel, Melissa Roth, Brandon Geer and Ward Nixon. The cast of My Dying City Vol. II at the American Theatre of Actors, NYC. Set Designed by Nina Pineda, with Gia Smith. Photo by Tessa Blythe Young.
Who We Are
The KANGALEE ARTS ENSEMBLE, INC., founded by director Dennis Leroy Kangalee and actor Che Ayende, is a 501-C3 BIPOC led non-profit theater company devoted to the collision of radical politics, classical theater aesthetics, & the liberation of the actor. We seek to make dangerous art in these dangerous times.
HENRY MILLER, SAMUEL BECKETT & THE THEATER OF SILENCE
FINDING RESISTANCE IN THE CLOWN
‘SMILE: A CLOWN’S ASCENSION’ was the first-ever North American commission of a Henry Miller work - for the stage. It opened October 15, 2025 at the Asilomar Chapel and closed at the The Henry Miller Memorial Library.
A tour de force performance, it was a bold adaptation-performance piece; a menagerie of sentiment, desire, triumph, and failure. A love poem to both the romantic and those who challenge the status quo.
Dennis Leroy Kangalee’s performance as “Auguste, The Clown” was both romantic and neurotic. Seizing the edge of Rimbaud and the sadness of one Chaplin’s tramps. Photo: Susan Kingsland. Design by Sean Atten. October 15, 2025
Like all saints who suffer, Miller’s Auguste - a circus clown who wants to do more than just make audiences laugh - is the penultimate Miller character: the ambitious outsider who is crucified for his desire to give man everlasting joy.
The Kangalee Arts Ensemble’s adaptation of Henry Miller’s beloved short story WAS THE FIRST commissioned adaptation in North America; the first time an actor had ever professionally adapted & performed Miller’s work in the United States.
“Krapp’s Last Tape and Rockaby are startling plays about more than failure or regret or memories, their characters signify the end of an era...for themselves...the audience...our society.”
Manny Espinoza’s tills for the Beckett Monodramas: Justine Stock in “Rockaby” and Dennis Leroy Kangalee in “Krapp’s Last Tape” - from the Carl Cherry Center premiere of the revival in Carmel, CA January 23, 2025.
Beckett’s plays are not foretelling doom - they are expressions of doom.
And all that surrounds it. Two of his greatest short works, the monodramas Krapp’s Last Tape and Rockaby are blues monologues on death, aging, loneliness…and the terror of memory. But with sublime regret and incredible humor.
“Kangalee as Krapp and Stock in Rockaby were tragic and funny...Both plays portrayed people who many of us will become someday, asking bold questions about aging.”
FUSING KONSTANTIN STANISLAVSKI AND FRANTZ FANON
With their provocative 2024 drama, The Life & Death of Art, the group’s first original work which openly equated the repression of artists with the oppression against Blacks and Palestinians, experiences and ideas from corners of the arts and trenches of revolutionary activism were applied. From idealism and righteous resistance to betrayal and treachery, this epic play told through six characters representing either a hawk or a dove — expressed the confusion, angst and shock of an age immersed in capitalist brutality, ethnic cleansing, rabid racism and very grave hopelessness…
Shades of Willy Loman and Walter Lee Younger: Ward Nixon’s performance as the tragic hero, Carver Carmelo, the artist with a conscience — gave audiences a new tragic figure to identify with….