Converging Generations

by MICHAEL EDGAR MYERS
Founding Artistic Director

On June 20, 2026, we presented "Convergence of History: Four Anniversaries, One Faith," the climax of our six-month tour of shows celebrating the anniversaries of African-American history, U.S. history, and the influence of Christian faith (minus and plus) on each.

For the "Best-of" showcase at Bellevue Ministry Center, we expanded our cast and added new generations of performers and crew. One group was the dance ensemble from Lions Mathematics & Science Christian Academy in Waukegan, IL, who performed two numbers for us in the afternoon after dancing in Waukegan's annual Juneteenth parade in the morning.

More on Lions to come.

For now, about the two women in the photo.

Carla Brown (right) and her brother, Mike Chubb, were asked to sing a duet at Mike and Vikki's wedding. Offering a reception toast was the closest they got.

At our wedding, Vikki and I recognized the remarkable expansive of performing talents in the families we were merging. Not just our siblings, but cousins, nieces and nephews. What we didn't anticipate at our wedding was reproductive potential.

Often in casting our KIT Ministries productions, our immediate go-to have been kinfolk. Among our standard-bearers has been Carla Brown, a niece who joined Vikki to form our original women's trio (the third singer original voice was Michelle Perez Campbell, not bloodkin, but adopted her as sister-momma-daughter...yes, another story).

For the history finale, we invited Carla to come up from Texas and perform with us. She's on summer break from teaching middle school in suburban Dallas, where she applies her musical theatre degree from Illinois Wesleyan University as a bilingual math, theater and life skills instructor.

(We also continually endeavor to give her performance opportunities ought of guilt. We're still trying, after all these years. to make up for the fact that she DIDN'T get to sing at our wedding, even though we invited her and her brother to do so. Unfortunately, one of the officiants skipped past their duet in the order of service, reducing their duet to a cameo on the platform, which, to this day, many guests still think was merely a chance for her to show off her day-of bouffant hairdo and display the beauty pageant wave. You're right: back to the regular story.)

Some of Carla's teaching responsibilities kept her from coming to Chicago, so she sent an understudy: Kimberly Brown (to my left in the photo), the fourth of her five daughters among seven offspring. As a condition of her accepting, Kimberly asked, "Can Mariah come?"

Mariah Brown is Kim's younger sister, her twin separated only by the two years between their births. The fact that I'm in the middle of them makes this a noteworthy photo in its own right. Naturally, the item we're standing in front of is more notable...and, pretty much, unplanned. Pretty much.

Here's what happened:

Kim, who is the age Carla was when we started KIT Ministries, sang and acted in the show. She's done some video for us before, and we saw her in a high school chorus, but had not experienced her live. She speaks quietly, without modulation or much volume.

I'll put it this way, in Vikki's term: she got skeels!

My view as director and fellow actor: She's the family's Michigan J. Frog -- great voice, disciplined work ethic. For us, her youthful vocal narrative provided the innocence needed to offset 250 years of painful storytelling; her 21st century birth brought contemporary awe to recreations of the original Juneteenth (June 19, 1865) and 1960s civil rights marches.  Most of all, when the script and characters called for it, she got her laughs.

As for Mariah, the blue M&Ms rock band "contract rider" clause, when we invited Kim, we didn't have a work role for her. Which was cool. We just expected her to watch.

Then came final tech rehearsal. Both media operators we wanted had schedule conflicts. "Um, Mariah," sez I, "do you do PowerPoint?"

In her voice that even at level 10 is but a whisper, she says, "Yes."

And did.

Not knowing if we'd get in, we started capturing postcard shots as we went in, and afterwards, spent time taking in angles in the John Lewis Plaza by the Chicago Public Library branch on the site.

Part of our post-show thanks involved

1. completing their W-9s,
2. granting Mariah's two-day request for Portillos, and
3. in between, stopping by this location -- the Barack Obama Presidential Center, that had opened to the public just day before (Juneteenth) --  that was 6 miles away from the theater for a drive-by photo op.

My idea. I figured they came all the way from Texas, besides performing history, they'd get a kick out of seeing it.

They did.

At 5 AM Tuesday we dropped them off at O'Hare.

Now you've read the caption.

They'll come back when we finagle a way inside.

Because they are great great-nieces.

#SDG #Shalom #Selah #AndAmen

And then, hotdogs at Portillos, and Facetiming with Mom.