Keenan Scott is an artist whose artistry cannot be contained in one artistic genre. He is a poet, a songwriter, an emcee and most recently he has become a ground-breaking playwright.

 Scott, a fourth-year theater major at Frostburg State University, wrote, produced and directed the university’s first play with an all Black cast. The play, performed at the university’s Performing Arts Center, was the first full-length production written by a student and supported by the university’s facilities, school officials say.

The project, entitled “Thoughts of a Colored Man on a Day When the Sun Set Too Early,” depicts the challenges, triumphs, struggles and stereotypes faced by Black men in the 21^st century through a series of monologues performed by Black men, each representing an emotion.

Scott says the play was inspired by feminist writer Ntozake Shange’s 20–part choreopoem, “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” written during the mid 1970s.

Shange’s play was produced off-Broadway at the Anspacher Public Theatre in 1976; and produced on Broadway at the Booth Theatre that same year.

“My project links with Ntozake Shange’s,” says Scott. “I wanted to write the male version. All of the characters in her play were colors of the rainbow: lady in red, lady in blue, lady in purple. I decided to develop my characters around emotions: love, lust, happiness, depression, despair.”

After watching a live production of Shange’s choreopoem during his sophomore year, Scott was inspired to write his own. It took him nearly two years to develop the script.

Scott says that his play seeks to inform. “I speak on history, abuse, rape and growing up without a father,” says Scott. “I’m trying to shine light on the positive and negative issues in our community. Due to some unfortunate situations, yes, Black men end up being killers. But we are also an educated people and a happy people and a depressed people just like any other people.”