Happy 2B Nappy Brings Black Hair History to the Stage in Aurora

The idea for Happy 2B Nappy: Our Hair Story began with a deeply personal moment between the playwright and her daughter. In 2019, Kenya Mahogany’s daughter, then six years old, asked if she could straighten her hair. She was attending a diverse school, but wearing “afro puffs or little ponytails” still made her feel different.

“I was okay with it, but I was a little apprehensive of why she wanted it straightened,” Mahogany says. “It was mainly just because of the people around her, seeing other girls with their hair straight. I was like, okay, I have to get my baby into learning how to love her own natural hair.”

Searching for a way to do that, Mahogany returned to a book she loved: bell hooks’ Happy to Be Nappy. Reading it with her daughter sparked a realization that the message could live beyond the page. That spark grew into Happy 2B Nappy: Our Hair Story, a theatrical work receiving its world premiere February 14–March 1 at Manos Sagrados in Aurora.

“While I was reading Happy to Be Nappy, it just kind of clicked for me,” she says. “It would be amazing to pass this empowerment and this education on to other young girls, to get them to embrace their natural hair and know how to do their hair, but also just know that they are beautiful no matter what. I thought it was a great idea to make this into a play inspired by bell hooks’ book, so then the stage play was birthed.”

Written and directed by Mahogany and produced by Control Group Productions through its Guest Artist Producing (GAP) Initiative in collaboration with Black Artist Amplified, Happy 2B Nappy blends storytelling, spoken word, dance, music and poetry into a ninety-minute celebration of Black hair and identity. While the play is accessible to young audiences, its scope reaches far beyond childhood.

“At first, it was mainly to educate children,” Mahogany says. “But then I found some nostalgic moments that made it for everyone — people who grew up in the ’60s and ’70s who can relate to certain hairstyles that happened back then. It became a well-rounded project.”

The play centers on G-ma, a wise grandmother who shares the history and meaning of Black hair with her granddaughter Kayla and Kayla’s best friend Hanna. As Kayla struggles with teasing and shame at school, G-ma’s stories transport the audience across time, revisiting braids, conks, Afro puffs, curls, and the cultural battles and triumphs woven into each style. The vignettes move fluidly through eras, building toward a joyful affirmation of self-love and heritage.

That historical grounding has been shaped through years of public development. A virtual reading with the Athena Project in 2022 introduced dramaturgical support and talkbacks that helped Mahogany reconsider character relationships and audience perspective. A 2023 live stage reading with Firehouse Theater Company deepened the process, with community members eager to share their own hair stories and, on occasion, correct the script.

“There were some elders that came to me and said, ‘Hey, this history is incorrect. I need you to change this,’” Mahogany said. One crucial note involved language: in scenes set in the 1950s and ’60s, she had used the term “Black people,” when “Negro” or “colored” would have been historically accurate.

“That was a very big piece of history that I should have paid attention to,” she says. “It was extremely beneficial to receive all that feedback. I used it all to shape it into what it is now.”

That attention to voice and authenticity helped the project stand out when Control Group Productions selected Mahogany for its GAP program in 2025. Producer and audio engineer Mona de Amor, who joined Control Group around the same time, said Mahogany’s poetic voice and clarity of purpose were immediately evident.

“Kenya’s project just really stood out in terms of her voice and the character’s voice that came through,” de Amor says. “She’s a poet, and it comes through, and the creativity and the storytelling are done so well.”

Over the past year, Control Group has supported the production’s logistics, while de Amor also serves as sound engineer for the run. The collaboration culminates at Manos Sagrados, an intimate venue Mahogany already knew from previous community events.

“It’s a very intimate venue, and I love intimate venues for theater,” Mahogany says. While her original vision imagined the play fully in the round, the final staging uses both a raised platform and a floor stage, allowing ensemble members and leads to move back and forth while keeping the audience close to the action.

Movement, Mahogany says, is the guiding metaphor of the piece. “I’m thinking of it as a train moving,” she says. “You’re seeing the train moving and these stories just passing by.” That sense of flow is carried through choreography by Elizabeth Joy, who shapes parody “commercials” inspired by nostalgic Black hair products, a choreographed poem for G-ma and other dance-driven pieces.

The production also weaves in live music, moments of singing and a culminating slam poem performed by the full cast that Mahogany calls a way to “wrap things up” and bring all the elements together. “There’s just a little bit of everything in it,” she says. “It encompasses all the parts of me and elements of who I am.”

The cast includes Artie Thompson, Brianna Winfield and Katelyn Kendrick in lead roles, supported by an ensemble of Don Randle, Arthur McFarland, Darius Cade, Janai Hines, Shanae Adams and Keisha Mathes. Behind the scenes, Gene Fashaw designs the set, Holly K. Hurd handles the costumes, Kacey McDonald is the stage manager and lighting engineer and Patrick Mueller and David Ortolano design the lighting.

For Mahogany, though, the success of Happy 2B Nappy isn’t measured only by production values or audience size. It comes back to that original moment with her daughter and to the young people who might see themselves reflected onstage.

“It’s a constant thing to be able to accept yourself with love, acceptance and representation,” she says. “I just want to give a whole history lesson of why they should love themselves. I think it’s so important for people to see reflections of themselves so they feel loved and we can have more people loving themselves in the world.”

Happy 2B Nappy: Our Hair Story runs Saturday, February 14, through Sunday, March 1, at Manos Sagrados, 9975 East Colfax Avenue, Aurora. Tickets are $30. Learn more at controlgroupproductions.org.