FIRE! NEW PLAY FESTIVAL 2010 (July 17 – 24)
July 17 – 24, 2010:
FIRE! NEW PLAY FESTIVAL 2010
Four black queer plays offer darkness and hope.
South Oxford Space (138 South Oxford Street in Ft Greene, Brooklyn)
BAAD! (841 Barretto St, 2nd FL, in the Bronx)
$5 – $10: Advance tickets at Brown Paper Tickets | Limited door tickets
Produced by Freedom Train Productions, FIRE! NEW PLAY FESTIVAL 2010 presents staged reading and barebones productions of new black queer plays that offer darkness and danger and, yes, a little artfulness and hope for these bleak post-Bush times.
As is our custom, these black queer plays are our curated – canaries in the coal mine – offerings to inspire and provoke artists and community into thought and action:
@ BAAD!, a co-production
SAT JULY 17TH, 2010 @ 2:30PM & 7:30PM
ORIGINS OF US by Jerome A. Parker
Promising cosmology graduate student, Adam, rents out his Bronx apartment’s closet to a stranger. ORIGINS is a cautionary journey through the realms of time, space, the body and the mind.
@ South Oxford Space:
THURS JULY 22ND, 2010 @ 7:30PM
SHE WHO STRUGGLES by LaTonia Phipps
A modern day Assata Shakur re-imagined, living in gentrified Harlem and in love with a white woman.
@ South Oxford Space:
FRI JULY 23RD, 2010 @ 7:30PM
MIRRORS by Azure D. Osborne-Lee
Two women mourn the loss of a loved one while sifting through the secrets of their shared past.
@ South Oxford Space:
SAT JULY 24TH, 2010 @ 2:30PM
BLACK/OUT STORIES by Steve Harper
When a writer conducts documentary theatre interviews with black LGBT people across the country about their most unusual coming out stories, he revisits his own personal challenges around being out, gay and black in America.
// Freedom Train in TIME OUT NEW YORK and NY DAILY NEWS.
// Watch a mini-documentary on the festival!
These new plays are written by citizen theatre artists. Since January, the producer artists of Freedom Train have provided safe and encouraging spaces in workshops and actor labs for these artists to create their work and test out their new ideas — independently and with collective purpose.
Every year our performances are attended by audience community members, like yourself, who care to wrestle with, laugh with, and be inspired by the ideas the playwrights and their creative team explore in the staged readings.
This year we are thrilled to announce a special barebones co-production of ORIGINS OF US by Jerome A. Parker at BAAD!, the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, to kick off our fourth festival and of course a powerful lineup of new play readings by Azure D. Osborne-Lee, Steve Harper, and LaTonia Phipps, a talented associate artist here at Freedom Train with whom we are thrilled to once again support.
Offstage Forums 2010, critical discussions inspired by their current work in development, precede the festival.
Major funders include The Union Square Arts Awards, a project of the Tides Foundation, Stonewall Community Foundation, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs and the Brooklyn Arts Council, and S/HEROES FOR THE FUTURE.