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Color blind theater: actor looks to expand images of minorities beyond black and white.

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Usman Ally knows what he is not. He's not the cowering, terrified, heavily-accented immigrant that TV producers and directors try to get him to play. He's not an evil terrorist, like the ones Jack Bauer hunts down on the television show "24."

Ally is a human Rubik's Cube of global and cultural influences. A Pakistani national who was born and raised in southern and eastern Africa, Ally came to the United States in 2000 when he was 18. "'Are you Indian? Are you Pakistani? Are you Arab?'" Ally recalls people asking when he arrived. "I've come to a place where I accept who I am, just as an artist."

Ally's search for his identity and struggle against media-imposed identities flow into the words of his hip-hop poetry. This year, the 26-yearold Chicago-based actor, poet and hip-hop theater artist stars in "American Ethnic," a show addressing the representation of race and gender in the media.

Presented by the Remy Bumppo Theatre Company, the production is a collaboration between Ally and two other spoken word artists, Kelly Zen-Yie Tsai and Idris Goodwin. All three are minorities. All three have Chicago connections. And all three have something to say about race, identity and the media's attempt to frame both. The show runs March 12 to 29 at the Greenhouse Theater Center.

Between drafts and deadlines, Ally sat down with The Chicago...

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