New Orleans theater legend Chakula Cha Jua passes away

By Fritz Esker
Contributing Writer

Local theater legend McNeal Cayette, better known in the Crescent City as Chakula Cha Jua, passed away on March 5. He was 79.

The New Orleans native grew up in the Calliope Housing Projects. His father was a railroad freight handler and his mother sometimes worked as a domestic. In a 2012 interview with The Times-Picayune, he cited a junior high school speech teacher with sparking his love affair with the theater. He graduated from Booker T. Washington High School. After a stint in the Air Force, he attended the University of New Orleans. He worked a variety of jobs to make ends meet from janitorial work after Saints games to work as an attendant in a mental hospital. He changed his name from Cayette to Cha Jua in 1972. Chakula Cha Jua translates from Swahili as “food of the sun.”

Cha Jua worked, wrote and directed for various theaters until he founded the Chakula Cha Jua Theater Company in 1985. It is recognized as New Orleans’ oldest Black community theater. The theater aimed to present the work of Black playwrights that reflected the experiences of Black people across the world.

“Mr. Chakula Cha Jua was one of the most consistent and important artists in the southern cultural movement,” wrote Kalamu Ya Salaam, a close friend of Cha Jua, in a press release. “He has been a reliable and innovative mainstay of the New Orleans dramatic scene for over fifty years.”

Before founding the Chakula Cha Jua Theater Company, Cha Jua was a staff member of the Free Southern Theater from 1971 to 1980. He was also a technical director, actor and playwright for the Ethiopian Theater from 1978 to 1980. During this stretch, he directed “Ritual Murder,” a meditation by playwright Tom Dent on Black-on-Black violence that is still performed today.

In an August 1996 article in The Times-Picayune discussing the 20th anniversary of “Ritual Murder,” Cha Jua spoke of the play’s themes.

“We hope by the time the play is over that the audience understands that everybody in the play has more or less contributed to this murder,” Cha Jua said in 1996. “And what is so beautiful about the piece is that it speaks to this issue like no book or essay I’ve ever read on the subject.”

In 1994, Cha Jua wrote “What Happened Next,” a play Gambit Weekly described as “a dandy original sitcom-like farce.” In 2012, he performed his one-man show “Growing Up Black (and Happy) in New Orleans” at the Ashe Cultural Arts Center.

Admirers of Cha Jua appreciated not just his focus on cultural issues but his humor. In the 2012 Times-Picayune article, Carol Bebelle, who was then executive director of the Ashe Cultural Arts Center, said the thing about Cha Jua’s work she looked forward to the most was the humor.

“He’s a great writer-director and a good actor, but his forte is comedy,” Bebelle said to The Times-Picayune in 2012.

Cha Jua said in 2012 that he did not want his work to perpetuate what he saw as a dramatic cliche of the angry, bitter Black man.

“Some of us had normal, happy lives,” Cha Jua said to The Times-Picayune in 2012.

Cha Jua was also an accomplished poet and essayist with his work published in Callaloo, The African American Review, A Bend in the River, and Word Up. He also served as president of the Alliance of Community Theaters and produced that organization’s New Orleans Black Theater Festival for twenty years.

Cha Jua remained active on social media and posted his thoughts on Facebook about his 79th birthday in August of last year. He was contemplative but grateful: “The years have passed and my age has caught up with me. I can’t lie no more. But where did all those years ago? I don’t remember being 50 or 60 or 70. Last time I looked I was 45. But I had best be thankful and praise the Lord that I have made it this far. So join me as I kick off my shoes and have a sip of wine…I’M CELEBRATING BIRTHDAY NUMBER SEVENTY-NINE,” Cha Jua wrote.

Karen Kaia Livers, a close friend of Cha Jua, said via press release that “He (Cha Jua) always introduced himself as ‘The Great Chakula’ and that he was!”

The Anthony Bean Community Theater’s Instagram page also paid tribute to Cha Jua and emphasized his generosity.

“Chakula Cha Jua was instrumental in our establishment. He brought innovative ideas and essential resources to our new venue on Lapeyrouse Street, and his direction and design work left a lasting impact,” said the post from the theater’s Instagram page. “Chakula Cha Jua was not just a creative genius but a king, a vital force in the Black theater renaissance in New Orleans…I am proud to know him.”

This article originally published in the March 17, 2025 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.