“Afrikan-centered” theater company MPAACT presents the winter edition of its late-night performance series, Solo Jams. Kicking it off is a panel discussion featuring three African-American directors: Chuck Smith, who staged Goodman Theatre’s Race; Timothy Douglas, who resigned last month after just six months as artistic director of Remy Bumppo Theatre; and Jocelyn Price of Sankofa Theatre. The evening includes performances by Tim’m T. West and Jonathan Kitt (Wed 2/8, 8 PM, free). Then the jams begin with West‘s Ready, Set, Grow (Fri 2/10), a coming-of-age story about little black boys who’ve considered suicide when their lives just aren’t enough. The next night, Kristiana Rae Colón uses poetry and monologue to explore the “wolves of our imagination” in Cry Wolf (Sat 2/11). The following weekend starts with Mateo Smith‘s Life: According to Thelma Dale (Fri 2/17), in which the titular southern matriarch has her comfortable ideologies turned upside-down. On Saturday, jazz flutist Nicole Mitchell combines prose and original music to tell her life story in Nowever (Sat 2/18). Expand your vocabulary with The Fag-tionary by Osiris Khepera (Fri 2/24). And Jonathan Kitt returns in Superman, Black Man, Me! (Sat 2/25), a “stage essay” exploring the “challenges of being a classic black man fighting for truth, justice, and the American way.” The series continues with solos by Wardell Clark (Fri 3/2), Coco Elysses (Sat 3/3), Elana Elyce (Fri 3/9), and William Kurk (Sat 3/10).