January Features: CAMILLE DARBY and PARIS CRAYTON III – Jan 8th & Jan 22nd

We’re bringing you two readings this month!

1 @ the cell on Monday, January 8, 2018

1 at Pearl Studios on Monday, January 22, 2018

Details Below!


Monday, January 8, 2018

7:30pm

Blackboard @the cell

338 W. 23rd Street b/t 8th and 9th Avenue

 QUEEN NANNY

Written by: Camille Darby

Reading Directed by: Miranda D. Haymon

 CAST:

Joshua Boone as Chris
Chelsea Williams as Melanie
Brenda Denmark as Ida

ABOUT THE PLAY

When Chris’s estranged Jamaican mother Ida shows up on his Brooklyn doorstep after decades of being absent, secrets of the past and present surface forcing this troubled family to make life changing decisions. 

 

ABOUT CAMILLE:

Born in Jamaica, Camille migrated to the Bronx at seven years old. She soon discovered that writing was the best way to adjust to American culture. Her first play Mother, May I? written as a high school student at DeWitt Clinton, drew the attention of playwright Wendy Wasserstein. Wasserstein mentored the budding playwright who went on to study theatre at Sarah Lawrence College (B.A. 2005) and earned an M.F.A in Dramatic Writing from New York University’s, Tisch (2007). Camille’s plays include They Call Her Immortal (HomeBase Theatre Festival 2017), FREE(48 Hours in Harlem Festival 2016), Queen Nanny (New York Stage & Film 2015), The White Peacock (Classical Theatre of Harlem 2012), Exodus (Fire This Time Festival 2011). Camille is the recipient of the BRIO playwriting award for her full-length play (2008).  The play earned a workshop production presented at the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, North Carolina (2013). Camille is a 2016 Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Juilliard School Finalist, 2015 Playwrights Center Jerome Many Voices Fellowship Finalist and a 2014-2015 Dramatists Guild Fellow.

ABOUT MIRANDA:

Miranda Haymon is a director currently serving as the Roundabout 2017/18 Directing Fellow. Her adaptation of Kurt Von
negut’s Slaughterhouse-Five  received its world premiere at the 2017 Capital Fringe Festival, which MD Theatre Guide called “innovative and immersive”. She recently completed her time at Arena Stage as the Allen Lee Hughes Directing Fellow where she assisted Kyle Donnelly (The Little Foxes), Molly Smith (Carousel, 2017 Helen Hayes Nomination for Outstanding Direction in a Musical), Jackie Maxwell (Watch on the Rhine) and Tazewell Thompson (A Raisin in the Sun). She is the Co-Artistic Director and Resident Performance Director at The Hodgepodge Group, an interdisciplinary, intersectional, insurrectional performance duo. Miranda is a graduate of Wesleyan University where she double majored in German Studies and Theater and was awarded the Rachel Henderson Theater Prize in Directing.

 


Monday, January 22, 2018

8pm

Pearl Studios Studio A

519 8th Avenue, 12th Floor

 STUCK

Written by: Paris Crayton III

ABOUT THE PLAY:

Jacob Charles has always been great at suppressing his true feelings until one night, after a few drinks, he gives in to what he has secretly always longed for. Shortly after, he receives news of his girlfriend’s pregnancy which sends him through a whirlwind of emotions. He begins to have therapy sessions with Whitney Armstrong, who is also going through her own problems trying to manage a relationship with a married woman.

ABOUT PARIS:

Paris Crayton III is an award-winning playwright, actor, and director. He has written over 40 plays, 14 of which have been produced around the country.  He was one of ArtsATL “30 under 30” and Atlanta Journal Constitution’s “Artist to watch.” Creative Loafing named him 2014’s “Best Local Playwright”  Critics have called him “a powerful dramatist” and praised him as “One of the most important playwrights of our time.” His plays have been presented and/or workshopped by Working Title Playwrights, Stage Door Players, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Aurora Theatre, Atlanta Black Theatre Festival, Beth Marshall Presents, Indianapolis Fringe Festival and more.