Growing up in Southwest Philadelphia, playwright Rayne, 28, said they found a strong sense of Afrocentrism – a worldview centered on the contributions of people of African descent. So, when they decided to look into an adaption of a Shakespeare play, Rayne said they became "obsessed with the idea of a Black Cleopatra."

"When we talk about who Cleopatra was, some of the arguments are that you can't apply modern racial understandings onto this woman from the ancient world, but then those same folks would die on a hill and say that she was racially purely Greek and white identifiably," Rayne said. "So I wanted to understand that contradiction and learn more about Afrocentrism." MORE: In 'Mounted,' author Bitter Kalli explores the connection between Blackness and horses

Rayne's upcoming

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