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Sneak Peek (And Then Some) of The Fire This Time Festival 2016

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The Fire This Time Festival presented by Horse Trade Theater Group was founded in 2009 by playwright Kelley Nicole Girod. According to the website, it was Girod’s goal to:

Provide rising playwrights of African and African American descent a platform to write and develop new work. The festival was conceived as an opportunity for playwrights to write and produce material that reflects diverse perspectives as 21st century theater artists. The first season of the festival brought together over thirty collaborative performers, directors, and other collaborators to create an amazing evening of short one-act plays.

When asked about her reasons for creating this platform Girod stated,

I started The Fire This Time because I felt that there was a standard in black theatre that myself and many others in the community did not adhere to, meaning that there seems to be a model of what constitutes a “Black” play based on theme, language, structure, content etc. We were not writing these plays and felt that there was a big part of the Black experience that was getting overlooked by the theatre industry. The Fire This Time seeks to support all the voices and stories that illuminate the Black experience. At the end of the day, if a play is written by a Black person, even if it’s a story about two white people in love, it is still a Black expression.

Since its inception, the Festival has remained committed to exploring new voices and styles and challenging new directions. The goal remains moving beyond common ideas of what’s possible in “Black theater.”  This year, the Festival has selected seven hot new Black playwrights to push boundaries and preconceived notions with their art.

Fire This Time on Twitter

Meet the 7 playwrights whose 10-minute plays premiere in the 7th annual 10-minute play festival. Jan 18-Feb 6, 2016

 Here’s a sneak peek of this year’s line up:

 Tanya Everett is a Boston born, Brooklyn bred storyteller. She has created original work that has been seen at Cherry Lane, Cherry Pit, HERE Arts Center, and Theaterlab, among others. Her favorite theater collaborations include Classical Theater of Harlem, NY Madness, Queens Theater and Naked Expedition Project. The Breast Cancer short she produced and stars in, “Without Scars,” will screen this summer and is on the festival circuit. She is also passionate about working with the youth, networking, healing and empowerment.

 

Fire This Time on Twitter

It’s #TBT with “Pousada Azul” by Nathan Yungerberg with Tanya Everett and Frank Mayers.

Keelay Gipson  is a multi­-disciplinary artist working as an actor, filmmaker, director and award-­winning playwright. His work as a playwright has been seen in spaces nationwide. He helped adapt the New York Times bestselling novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake into a  production that was subsequently performed in NYC and Chicago. He has been featured in Next Magazine, Time Out New York and Advocate.com for his play N/F. His play, The Lost, won 4 awards as part of the 2014 Planet Connections Theater Festivity and was produced at SCENE in Summer 2015.

Amazing Grace on Twitter

What am I doing between shows?!Visiting with my best friend (and awesome playwright!) #KeelayGipson at Theatre Row!!

Jireh Breon Holder‘s sharp, gritty, and political plays frequently include wild visual metaphors that address the poetry of everyday life in America. From 2012­-13, he served as the Kenny Leon Fellow at the Alliance Theatre. His plays have received readings and productions at the Alliance Theatre, Yale School of Drama, Yale Cabaret, and Theater Emory. Since graduating Morehouse College, he has been completing a MFA in playwriting at the Yale School of Drama.

Jiréh Breon Holder | Feature of the Month

The Each-Other Project’s February Feature of the Month is Playwright Jiréh Breon Holder. Visit www.TheEachOtherProject.com for more info

Roger Q. Mason is a playwright whose work mines the intersection of history, memory, and identity. Mason’s works have been seen at venues throughout the country. He was a finalist of the inaugural Activate: Midwest New Play Festival and the winner of an Encore Producer’s Award at the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival. Mason holds a BA in English and Theatre from Princeton University and an MA in English from Middlebury College. He is currently attending Northwestern’s MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage.

Roger Q. Mason, Playwright – Lincoln Adjacent

Roger Q. Mason talks to Ralph Walker about being a playwright and his current play titled Lincoln Adjacent at the Fringe Theatre in Hollywood, 6201 Santa Monica Boulevard, Los Angeles, Ca. 90038. Running from June 8th through June 26th, 2014.

Stacey Rose  a.k.a. “Rosie”  is a 2015­-16 Dramatists Guild Fellow. In 2015, Stacey earned an MFA in Dramatic Writing from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts where she was honored with the NYU Grey Gallery Prize for her short play My Pet, the 2015 Outstanding Writing for Stage playwriting award, was a 2014­-15 Tisch Future Screenwriter Fellow, and was a 2015 Fusion Film Festival finalist for her television pilot “Up­ And ­Coming.” She is the creator of The Perceptions Project: Films about what we believe, which is currently in post production for its third film, “Fun.” Stacey strives to create work which entertains, challenges, educates and empowers both the audience and her collaborators. 

 

Stacey Rose on Twitter

And now all my tea is spilled :). So excited to work with Kevin, A.J. and the whole TFTT crew! Congrats fellow… http://t.co/LDeLDB5Wc7

Korde Arrington Tuttle is an award ­winning playwright, visual artist, and educator hailing from Charlotte, NC. New works include: the downside of being a fish, which was presented at The New School’s AfroFuturism Conference 2015 and The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art, in collaboration with THE TENTH ZINE; who is burning black churches?, which first appeared as a ten ­minute play at The 24­Hour Plays: Nationals (2015); and The Chair, The Dance. Korde is currently pursuing a MFA in Playwriting at The New School.

Korde Tuttle “It’s difficult for me to…

Korde Tuttle “It’s difficult for me to reflect on my impact as a Black, male educator without honoring the other identifiers that informed my decision to teach. I’m a big brother. I was raised in the American South. I also identify as gay.

Nia O. Witherspoon is a multidisciplinary artist ­who creates contemporary ritual space grounded in African diaspora sensibilities. Working primarily in the media of theatre/performance, vocal and sound composition, and creative scholarship, Witherspoon’s work has been supported by several foundations and organizations. Last year, Witherspoon won Astraea’s Lesbian Writer Award, was the runner­up for the Lincoln Center Artist Education Fellowship and a finalist for the Jerome Many Voices Fellowship.

The Messiah Complex [Excerpt]

This is an excerpt from a play written by SoliRose member Nia Witherspoon, and produced by The Company of Angels in Los Angeles. It was directed by Nataki Garrett and Ayana Cahrr, and curated by Lee Sherman and Ricardo Bracho. We have already obtained the permission of all actors in posting it online.

The Festival is set to run Jan 18-Feb 6, 2016. For more information, click here.

Nicole "Blackberri" Johnson is a freelance writer, stage/ film actress, activist and entrepreneur. Mom of three. Blackberri is also a notorious cape thief and unapologetic bacon lover. Follow on twitter @Blackberri

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A Must See

We Were There: Sojourners & Her Portmanteau

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[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Playwright, educator, opera singer, and Queen, Mfoniso Udofia has two plays running at New York Theatre Workshop. *pause* TWO PLAYS. In the SAME season!?!? *ends congratulatory gasp* Sojourners and Her Portmanteau are performed in repertory, as two chapters of Udofia’s sweeping, nine-part saga, The Ufot Cycle.  Admittedly, before researching each show, I didn’t know the definition of either word; and in the spirit of keeping it consistent with the honesty, I didn’t like either play. I loved them.

Sojourners

Minimalism seems to be the name of the game these days.  I sat down to a completely black stage, sans a multimedia display lodged on the ceiling at a 45-degree angle.  Clutching my all white program and bobbing my head to the ‘70s pop rock pre-show music, I prepared my heart for the story of Sojourners, well at least that was the plan.  The stage begins to rotate and we meet Abasiama (Chinasa Ogbuagu) and Ukpong (Hubert Point-Du Jour), Nigerian expatriates sojourning in Houston, Texas with the plan to start a family, earn their degrees, and go back to Nigeria until life happens.

Charming and handsome, Ukpong becomes defined by his leather jacket, shoulder work and shimmy which match the fascination and yearning for freedom that illuminates his eyes every time he talks of peace, protest, and Prince–all shaping his view of 1970s America, and consequently, the American Dream.  But does leather compensate for grit? Is a movement or vibe really a panacea for disappointment, aimlessness, and a need to find yourself?  Abasiama enters the play pregnant, purposed, and outfitted in pieces of Nigerian garb, grounded in duty showing a stark contrast to Ukpong who floats in desire.  What’s lost in your household is found elsewhere, and this is when we start to see, and root for, Abasiama’s transformation from timid to tenacious.

Enter Moxie (Lakisha May), a colorful prostitute turned protector and friend.  There is a mutual respect despite great differences between her and Abasiama, with their love for one another creating moments that make you believe in the beauty of humanity.  Enter Disciple (Chinaza Uche), another warm and determined hearted immigrant who has come to the United States to study, rounding out the timely additions of love, support, and security when Abasiama needed them the most.

Through and through this is Abasiama’s story and she glows.  Her kindness, her sisterhood, her strength, her worthiness, and the realization of her American Dream, guide her decisions—which is the catalyst behind the entire Ufot Cycle.

Her Portmanteau

Her “portmanteau”, or red suitcase, makes a return as 30 years have passed.  Abasiama now has two daughters, one raised in America and the other who has come from Nigeria to reconnect with her family.

This is a good moment to mention that each story is informed by the other, but can certainly stand alone on substance, content, and the amazing direction of Ed Sylvanus Iskandar.  The staging is exciting and deliberate, while minimal, putting the full focus on the tension and growth to be expected of a family reunited after a substantial amount of time and distance.

Chinasa Ogbuagu returns to the stage, this time as the American-born daughter, Adiagha Ufot, Adepero Oduye as Iniabasi Ekpeyoung (Ukpong and Abasiama’s daughter), and Jenny Jules as the mother, Abasiama Ufot.

Seated on a couch in Adiagha’s small New York Apartment, no amount of preparation readies your mind and spirit to form the words to make up for 30 years of life, connection, and memories missed.  We’re taken on a ride of resentment, hurt, love, and forgiveness, as the portmanteau is literally unpacked.  We watch the teeter-tottering between offense and defense as one sister tries to assimilate into American culture, and the other attempts, albeit stubbornly, to fall in formation in honoring a family she shares blood with, but little time or tangible history.

It’s powerful to see a story of history and continuing a legacy despite lost time, faulty promises, and difficult choices explored with an all-woman cast as far too often the idea of legacy is framed in patriarchy.  Jules admirably takes Abasiama through the fire to heal, to feel, and to fix her family.  The narrative allows us to empathize and understand the struggle that comes with upholding family values versus cultivating a space to achieve personal dreams and happiness.

Her Portmanteau (and Sojourners) is written in a way that finds your soul, gently massaging it with humor, while leaving it with very real questions.  I’ve never felt a greater need to binge read nine stories and simultaneously study the story of my own family tree. I left changed. I left wrapped in the strength of my mom and my mom’s- mom’s sacrifice.  I left pensive and with seeds of future forgiveness planted.  I left changed.

For capturing our hearts with wit and with truth.  For putting Black women at the center of a poignant narrative.  For unapologetically telling a story you haven’t seen told and telling it in the way you want it to be told.

We thank you Mfoniso.  We thank you.

Have you seen the #duetplays? Sound off in the comments below![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

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A Must See

Our Story in 2 Plays for 1 Price: Mfoniso Udofia’s Sojourners & Her Portmanteau

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Last winter, we reported on Sojourners by playwright Mfoniso Udofia, a new play about a Nigerian family who has come to America with the goal of earning a college education, starting a family, and returning to Nigeria. But not without the twists and turns that come along with every plan that seems straightforward.

Image result for Sojourners and Her Portmanteau

Thanks to New York Theatre Workshop, we get to relive this moment and continue the dialogue, decades later, with Her Portmanteau. Performed in repertory, these two chapters of Udofia’s sweeping, nine-part saga, The Ufot Cycle, chronicle the triumphs and losses of the tenacious matriarch of a Nigerian family.

Ed Sylvanus Iskandar directs the two-part story in association with The Playwrights Realm, who premiered Sojourners last winter in a limited engagement world premiere production. Her Portmanteau also received the 2016 Edgerton Foundation New Play Award grant.

The cast includes Jenny JulesLakisha Michelle MayAdepero OduyeChinasa OgbuaguHubert Point-Du Jour, and Chinaza Uche.

As if that wasn’t enough to get excited about, we have an exclusive deal for our Broadway Black readers!

Our Story in 2 Plays for 1 Price!

Yes. That’s two shows for one price! The discount code BWYBLACK will take 50% off tickets to ANY performance(s) if purchased by May 15th! 

Go ahead and grab your tickets. We have ours!

Sojourners and Her Portmanteau plays at NYTW until June 4th.

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Twitter: @BroadwayBlack

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