Theater Plays

(122-Min) 7W, 5M

A Killing in Harlem

"A Killing in Harlem" is a contemporary play set in Harlem that follows the unfolding of a series of murders and their impact on the community. At the center is Professor Latirius Fields Jr., a prominent African American academic known for his outspoken views on race. As the murders gain attention, particularly after a wealthy white woman is killed, the story explores themes of racial identity, intergenerational trauma, and social activism through various characters' experiences and relationships. The play weaves together multiple perspectives, including those of Fields' students, local residents, and a determined investigative reporter, as they grapple with fear, suspicion, and the complex dynamics of race in modern urban America.

(10-Minute) 2W

Anonymous

An anonymous visual artist reaches viral fame. 

Sick of rejection and her career seeming to go nowhere, Noelle Hardisohn, a visual artist, makes a bold move. It worked! Everybody is eager to buy the art of this bold talent. But why don’t they know she’s Black? Why don’t they know her name?

(79-Min) 6W

Amma’s Wit

This EST/Sloan commission telling is a compilation of slave narratives and based on the various granny midwives biographies (Mary Francis Hill Coley, Margaret Charles Smith, Onnie Lee Logan…) They were numerous! They were well respected Black women from the South who provided care to poor and rural women during pregnancy and labor at a time when hospitals were not accessible to them. They were family counselors, breastfeeding consultants, postpartum doulas, nutritionists, and advocates. They were often highly religious and considered their work necessary, a privilege, and a calling from God. Video recording available)

(20-Minute) 1W 2M

A Visit to Weizenbaum

Adapted from and inspired by the military science-fiction story A Visit to Weizenbaum, by Jamie Metzl

(Full-length) 3/4W 3M

Chasing The Storm

It’s some time in the future, when the earth suffers from major droughts. Aquah, a young black woman, is a Devlin, able to chase the storms and predict where the next body of water will be. Abioh, like many others, have left the compounds of the earth’s edge, venturing into the desert, hoping to find signs of a new way of life. As the government tries to contain the populace, water and food being rationed, many losing their lives, a new leader is being born. Chasing The Storm explores reluctant leadership, claiming one’s gifts, and carving a new world.

(Full-length) 5W 4M

Bloody White Chickens and Royal Stork Gin

Written with Thalia Cunningham. As it’s always been in Northern Ghana, it seems. Mama Balima is accused of being a witch when her nephew dies mysteriously; she is stoned and banished to a witch camp with many elderly women, like herself. Comfort, her granddaughter is forced to put dreams of marriage aside to care for her grandmother in one of Ghana’s six camps. Sharifa West, an American doctor, with hopes of making change in a small Northern Ghanaian village, finds she may have to look at the world through a different lens. Bloody White Chickens and Royal Stork Gin  explores culture, traditions, care for the elderly, and spiritual life.

(10-Minute) 3W

Frida and Remedios

Alejandra, a visual artist, cannot create. She is mired in despair. But no one has suffered more than the great Frida Kahlo. They row together in a gondola and sing songs as Lenoardo Da Vinci sails by.  Heath Ledger has got Alejandra thinking. Remedios Varo calls her an exquisite corpse. This a short surrealistic story about despair and creating art.

(75-Min.) 6W 5M

Chiseled Legacies

"Chiseled Legacies" follows the story of Zara Singleton, a talented sculptor who, despite her success at the Venice Biennale, is denied a commission in her hometown of Richmond. Undeterred, Zara decides to fund the project herself, drawing inspiration from the lives and works of three pioneering African American women sculptors: Edmonia Lewis, Augusta Savage, and Meta Warrick Fuller. As Zara navigates the challenges of creating her commissioned piece, she learns valuable lessons about resilience, determination, and the power of art to transform lives and communities. Through her journey, the play celebrates the enduring legacy of African American women artists and invites us to reflect on the importance of uplifting marginalized voices in the art world and beyond.

(Full-length) 2W 4M

 Hedda: A Portrait of a Young Woman

The eponymous "plain ol' crazy" hellcat of Ibsen's classic play is given a fresh reexamination from playwright Sandra A. Daley-Sharif through music, movement, dueling, and a greek chorus. Tackling emptiness, mental illness, and those flaky friends you used to have in college, Hedda (a portrait of a young woman) explores the price of freedom and the story of one woman's journey to find liberation within the confinements of her mind.

(110 Minutes) 4W 3M 

HEDDA AND GEORGE

Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler is given a fresh examination with a vivid world and natural dialogue about Black life. Newlyweds Hedda and George, just back from a six-month honeymoon in Ghana, bought Maya Angelou’s iconic home in Harlem and are inspired to tackle conversations on class, conflict, and love with three generations. Issues of race, legacy and Black trauma simmer beneath the surface, just waiting to be sparked like a slow burn on a hot stove. It reads like a classic as it pays tribute and is a monument to Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin.

(One-Act) 2M

JAKE

Jake: is the story of Samuel, a father, trying to raise, understand, and provide for his son Jake, who is labeled as a Dyslexic, with ADHD tendencies, and exhibits troubling social behaviors. The final straw is that Jake has been kicked out of a prestigious private school for boys with learning disabilities. Samuel was told that Jake could not return until he tries medication for Jake. Samuel refuses to medicate his son. He decides to try a new approach. Away from the toxic city, he is tethered to his son, and finds that they are much alike. 

 (Full-length) 6W 5M

JAROCK MASH-UP

A collision of DanceHall, Dey-O Deeeyyy-O!, graffiti, f%cking Christopher Columbus and his gringo son Ferdinand, rape, the Tainos, the Africans, globalization, pillage (Sorry…, colonization!), breadfruit trees, Chiquita bananas, bodacious girls choppin’ de grass, a duppy that watches, and a family's search that takes them beyond Jamaica's Belvedere Mountains.   JaRock Mash-UP has evocative language that embraces the complexities of race, culture, and globalization through the lens of the third world. It indeed reflects the diversity of immigrant stories, the society we live in, and unique in its cultural perspective. 

(10-Minute) 3W

KATRINA AND SANDY

We suffered Hurricane Katrina followed by Sandy. A family of women find themselves shaped by both. This story is about loss, post traumatic syndrome, and how history shapes us.

(Full-length) 1W 4M

LES FRÉRES

Inspired by Lorainne Hansberry’s Les Blancs, Les Fréres tells the story of three estranged brothers of Haitian descent. They come home to Harlem for their father’s final days. Memories filled with anger and abuse surface as they deal with their father’s death. Each recalls, differently, feelings of abandonment, betrayal, and loss. Will they retreat into the lives they have forged for themselves or will they try to make a new life despite a history of pain. The play deals with issues of historical trauma, race, culture, family, and identity. 

(Full-length) 3W 5M

LOS SAMARITANOS

It’s 2010. The heat of the immigration crisis. Denver, a Mexican-American man manages a gas station in an Arizona town, near the Mexico border. He dreams of changing his luck, heading out to California, and starting a new life with his pregnant wife, Rosa. As Mexicans seek the American dream on foot and bicycle, and good samaritans risk their lives crossing illegals along the border of Sasabe, tensions rise high, questioning the high price we pay for our dreams. 

(One-Act) 2W 2M

MAN IN THE MOON

Octavia meets in bursts of time with the Man in the Moon, while her husband Bruce finds peace in the headlines and the routine of his day. Her mother finds comfort in the practical, until an encounter in Starbucks. Can a trip to Home Depot take us to the stars? This is a story about purpose, God, and Jeffrey, the scooter guy.

 (10-Minute) 4W

MARIBELLA

…While well-meaning, the laws reinforce the idea that some mothers are “bad” and should give up their children so that "good" parents can raise them.

Marisol is 17 and she had a baby named Maribella. Her mother didn't even know. Cristobal started barking and two Mexican sisters found Maribella in a plastic bag. Isabella says "The last time I saw Marisol on FaceBook. She was happy."

(10-Minute) 2M 1W 1Fluid Gender playing a 9-year-old

NAPOLEON WRASSE

Napoleon Wrasse: is the most beautiful and regal of the humphead wrasse clan. He looked up one day and noticed they are becoming extinct. His friend Willem, who works for the World Wildlife Fund has invited him and his clan to the CITIES Conference, where there are others like him fighting for endangered species. When Napoleon presents this to the clan, he quickly realizes that not everyone is as hopeful, nor do they trust humans. Napoleon Wrasse explores issues of leadership and advocacy and the beauty of the humphead wrasse.

( 60 Minutes) 7W 2M or 9W

ON WASHINGTON BLVD

 It's a remarkably warm morning outside Cobo Hall in Detroit, when Kristian Fogarty, lead singer of 69Roses, protest with five other pro-lifers. Amongst them is the emergent 17-year-old feminist, Kathy; all in search of Bacon. As they chant, eat borscht, and make signs, they share their fears and their lives. 

( 140 Minutes) 3W 2M  1M/W

OUT OF THE NARROW PLACE 

Out of the Narrow Place, written with Allison Zajac-Batell, tells the story of a young interracial/interfaith couple, burgeoning in their individual careers, living in present-day Brooklyn and the tensions they navigate within their respective families. Just as they clumsily traverse traditional and generational ideas, death changes the course of their lives. This play deals with family, leadership, Jewish-ness, and loving unconditionally.

(10 Minutes) 2W

SHIRLEY AND IRIS

Shirley is a retired 75 year old woman who recently lost her husband. Just as Shirley is ready to start a new chapter in her life, she is now charged to care for her mother 96 year old mother, Iris. As Iris struggles to hold on to her fading independence, she forgets to eat, take her medication, and battles with a daughter who makes her feel like a child, ultimately forcing these women to forge a connection, lost over the years. Shirley and Iris explores aging, care taking, and what it is to love.

(Full-length)  3W 5M 3M/W

STRADDLING THE EDGE 

Sophia's brother died in a brutal killing. She can't quite make sense of it. This is her second miscarriage, and no one told her, not even her pragmatic Caribbean mother, how devastating that would be. Her husband Cephas, a man of few words, is no longer her place of solace. She feels alone when even her best friend, Ismene, single and motherless, struggles with her own challenges of being a complete and defined woman. Sophia reflects on how she has described herself and felt security in the world, i.e. her marriage, being her father's daughter, a sister, a mother. She has to find a new definition, and those answers lie within herself.

(One-Act) 3M/W

THE BRIDGE 

Me and You stand on a bridge. You fly-fish while their dog, Sycamore, goes missing. You roll Cubanos while the orange moon hangs low. Hip-hop blares. You, Me, and Them build bridges.

(60+ Minutes) 3W 3M  

THE DREAMER'S SON. EUGENE 

Eugene is a 16-year-old obsessed with numbers and A320s. He’s autistic. Alfred Allmers put everything aside in the wake of a dream, deciding he could do better by his son. Eugene. But our children aren’t always what we expect or want them to be. The Dreamer’s Son. Eugene. Based on Ibsen’s Little Eyolf is about family, autism, what it takes to be good parents, and how ugly we can be when we don’t like the cards we are dealt.

(One-Act) 3M  2W  1M/W

THE FAGGOTS' KISS

Jonathan Savescu  is an 28 year old sculptor and videographer He is a prodigy. Hayden Albert, a gay philanthropist commissions Jonathan to create a piece of art for a privately owned public atrium for downtown South Orange. When Jonathan presents a controversial sculpture called The Faggots’ Kiss, we quickly learn that South Orange is not as liberal as it pretends. The Faggots’ Kiss explores bias and the controversy of public art.

(Full-length) 4W  3M

THE ISLAND BULL'S WIFE

A surreal fable with music, song, and dance. Mary, a sensible young woman, sells her voice, her gift of storytelling and healing, for beauty, and a chance to win the heart of Islan Bulova. But is that enough to keep the Island Bull? This is a fantastical story about valuing ourselves and our gifts, and the price we pay when we discard them.

(Full-length) 1W  9M

THE TRIAL OF AMOS 'N' ANDY 

NOTE: If budgets allow, an all female quartet of musicians/singers can provide the music and sound effects. 

The Trial of Amos 'n' Andy written with Stephen Anderson, focuses on a little known battle that took place in 1932 between Robert Vann, the crusading publisher of the Pittsburgh Courier, his small band of reporters, and Freeman Gosden the creator of “Amos ’n’ Andy”, the most popular (and one of the most racist) shows in American broadcast history. It tells the story of how this small Black newspaper launched a nationwide campaign to force the "Amos ’n’ Andy" radio program off the air. It is a rivalry story concerned with the struggle for self-definition and respect. The play is like an old-time radio show where the scenes flow one into another, the ensemble of actors render characters and remind us of foley artists creating sound effects. Lights and soundscapes will move us from one world to another. This play is a work of fiction. While some characters have real-life counterparts, their characterizations and the incidents in which they are depicted are products of the imagination and not a work of biography or history. 

(Full-length) 4W  2M

THE WHITE HORSE

Nat never had a great relationship with his father, and then he upped and died on him. Nat swore that things would be different with his kids. So, here he his, staring cancer in the face, not a pot to piss in, and no one to wipe his ass. Go figure!

(15-Minute) 5W  1M

THE WILD DOG SLEEPS IN THE ROYAL ALCÁZAR 

Trapped within a picture frame, JUANA, a dog in human figure and worn by life, dances with her lover Vela while her daughters and ladies lay in waiting. A short play with butterflies, elaborate finery, movement, and song.

 (One-Act) 4W  2M

TOUCH

Two friends, in group. Two brothers, in law. Two friends, living together with Javvy. Mari is 17 and way too young for Paco. Julie tells Ramone her needs. And Gineiris takes a chance with Cami. This play is about loneliness. Its about friendship. Its about family. It's about reaching out and searching for connective-ness.

(One-Act) 4W  4M

WATERMELON TROPES

Based on a true story. At a wealthy high school, seniors play a prank on the African American dean, leaving watermelons in her office. Who knew an apology would be demanded, the New York Times would report, and a protest would ensue? … over a few watermelons!?  Watermelon Tropes explores the importance of inclusive history and the tropes of Black Americana. Americana.