By the time Diessou Kante opened JolieDen’s Beauty Bar in 2018, she already knew what she didn’t want. She’d spent years ...

Braiding is more than a hairstyle. For generations, African American hair braiding styles have held deep cultural significance, telling stories of survival, status and self-expression. What may seem ...

Every few decades the theater needs its “Steel Magnolias.” Before Robert Haring’s beauty-shop dramedy opened in 1987, there was Clare Booth Luce’s 1936 comedy, “The Women,” which also made a beauty ...

To playwright Jocelyn Bioh, the African hair braiders of Harlem are icons. “They’re a large part of the economy of Harlem,” Bioh said of the Manhattan neighborhood. “Those are women-owned businesses, ...

Jocelyn Bioh’s Harlem-set play, bristling with wit and drama, follows the staff and customers of a hair braiding salon as they joke, argue, and try to get those styles just right. Senior Editor and ...

Isis Brantley owns the Institute of Ancestral Braiding in Oak Cliff. A Dallas businesswoman achieved a victory against the state of Texas this month when a federal court declared that rules that ...

The actors who play the sisterhood of stylists in 'Jaja's African Hair Braiding' sit down for a candid beauty-shop conversation in light of the show's L.A. premiere at Center Theatre Group's Mark ...

Tuesday night was a gut punch that left me grateful for live theater. That evening, I had the pleasure of joining the audience at "Jaja's African Hair Braiding," the vibrant comedic play with a big ...

Customers who visit Salamata Sylla's tiny hair salon in Kent, Wash., will find two chairs, a television, a wash basin, and not much else. Sylla, 30, mostly uses the basin for rinsing combs. Using her ...

If ever a play seemed tailor-made - tailor-braided? - for the Mark Taper Forum stage, at least in the 2020s, it's "Jaja's African Hair Braiding." The most intimate of the three Music Center theaters ...