Actor/director, activist awarded $3,000 prize

MIDDLETOWN — A city man whose play, “Requiem for an Electric Chair,” based on his escape from execution in Kinshasa, will premiere in New Haven later this month has been honored with a grant from The New England Foundation for the Arts.

Middletown resident Toto Kisaku is originally from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His production is the harrowing story of his imprisonment and near-execution there in 2015, before he was granted political asylum in the United States, according to Wesleyan University.

Kisaku is among this year’s Rebecca Blunk Fund awardees, and will receive an award of $3,000 in unrestricted support for the creation of new work and for professional development, according to a press release.

Kisaku is an awardwinning Congolese playwright, actor, director and producer who studied drama at the National Institute of Arts. After establishing the K-Mu Theater in 2003, he spent the next 13 years traveling the world producing and participating in plays, with a focus on going beyond the constraints of daily life and examining how people living in difficult circumstances (poverty, oppressive regimes) can use artistic activities to recreate their environments and improve their lives, the release said.

As an activist, one of his most successful projects as producer and actor was “Basal’ya bazoba,” which raised awareness of the law protecting children in Kinshasa and played to more than 150,000 people in and around Kinshasa, the statement said. For this production, he received the 2010 Freedom to Create Prize presented in Cairo, Egypt.

As a U.S. refugee since December 2015, Kisaku “is redefining his artistic expression based not only on the drama that his country of origin is experiencing, but also on his experiences in the U.S., a country that has welcomed him with so many surprises, from its humanitarian philosophy to its perspectives on identity and freedom,” according to the release.

“Requiem for an Electric Chair” will premiere at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas June 23.

The performance at Wesleyan July 12 at 7:30 p.m. in Crowell Concert Hall in Middletown, will be a staged, 40-minute reading which will be followed by a 20-minute talk-back with the artist. Kisaku will also talk about his artistic process July 10 at 12:10 p.m. in the Ring Family Performing Arts Hall.

Donations are $10. For information, visit wesleyan universitytickets.com.

Contributed photo Toto Kisaku is an award-winning Congolese playwright, actor, director and producer who lives in Middletown.