NYU Skirball -Autophagies, Hermitage Artist Retreat Greenfield Prize, Classical Theatre of Harlem – Twelfth Night, Sabbath’s Theatre, She’s Got Harlem on Her Mind, NJPAC-Philip Roth Unbound, Parade to Broadway
The Classical Theatre of Harlem’s Twelfth Night performs at NYU Skirball Feb. 11 thru 16. The show had an outdoor run in July 2022 at Harlem’s Marcus Garvey Park, is directed by AUDELCO Award-winner Carl Cofield, and features AUDELCO Award-winner and Tony nominee Kara Young, Twelfth Night engages with the global conversation around equity and inclusion and features a majority-Black team of artists lead by director Carl Cofield, CTH’s Associate Artistic Director alongside associate director and choreographer Tiffany Rea-Fisher, EMERGE125’s Executive Artistic Director. The cast includes William DeMeritt, Carson Elrod, Kat Files, Allen Gilmore, Dennzyl Green, Alisa Gregory, Brynlie Helmich, Madelyn LaLonde, Anthony Lalor, Zoë Lishinskiy, Cassandra Lopez, Collin McConnell, Chivas Michael, Othello Pratt, Jr., Christina Sajous, Donathan Walters, and Kara Young. www.cthnyc.org
NYU Skirball will present the U.S. premiere of Eva Doumbia’s Autophagies (Self-Eaters), a mix of theater and flavors served with a pinch of music and a taste of international politics. The play, co-produced with The Invisible Dog and performed at The Invisible Dog Art Center in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, features a renowned Paris-based chef who will prepare a meal to be shared by the audience. Eva Doumbia’s Autophagies (2021) is an intimate hybrid experience centered around cooking, memories and the politics of the food we eat. It is also a reminder of the colonial histories still at play in today’s kitchens. Doumbia encourages us to think about the political dimension of food, reflecting with humor and tenderness on its origins, modes of culture, and foodstuffs. A musician, a dancer, and a mistress of ceremony lead us to a Global kitchen, where ingredients come together for a great celebration of the senses. Without ever resorting to moralizing, Autophagies simply proposes to “eat consciously”: to take our daily habits and our prejudices as a starting point for a broader reflection. The cast of seven features the Paris based chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Alexandre Bella Ola, who will be preparing a Maafe, a West African specialty, to be shared with the audience at the play’s end. www.nyuskirball.com
The Hermitage Artist Retreat (Andy Sandberg, Artistic Director and CEO), in collaboration with the Philadelphia-based Greenfield Foundation, has selected two recipients for the 2023 Hermitage Greenfield Prize, one in the discipline of visual art and one in the field of dance and choreography. Dancer-choreographer Lorenzo ‘Rennie’ Harris and visual artist Sandy Rodriguez will each receive a six-week Hermitage Fellowship and a $30,000 commission to create a new work in their respective fields, which will have their first public presentations in Sarasota County in 2025.
The Obie Award-winning Metropolitan Playhouse, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary, is proud to present She’s Got Harlem on Her Mind, an evening of three short plays by influential Harlem Renaissance writer Eulalie Spence (1894–1981). Directed by Timothy Johnson, the award-winning one-acts celebrate life in Harlem in the 1920s. This strictly limited engagement runs February 16 – March 12, 2023, at the Metropolitan Playhouse (220 East Fourth Street, Manhattan) with an opening set for Sunday, February 19. Tickets are now on sale at https://metropolitanplayhouse.org/.
New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in collaboration with the Newark Public Library, will present PHILIP ROTH UNBOUND, a weekend-long festival that will celebrate, challenge and explore the life, legacy and work of novelist and Newark-native Philip Roth, on what would have been his 90th birthday weekend. Beginning Friday, March 17, and concluding Sunday, March 19, 2023 NJPAC will host a three-day series of entertaining and engaging events, featuring over forty of the most prominent writers, actors, artists, journalists and public intellectuals working today. www.njpac.org
Program highlights include a fully-cast, dramatic reading of Roth’s national bestseller The Plot Against America; a preview of John Turturro and Ariel Levy’s stage adaptation of Roth’s National Book Award-winning novel Sabbath’s Theater; and a number of spirited public debates and discussions on censorship, appropriation, identity politics and more. Participants include actors Mary-Louise Parker, S. Epatha Merkerson, Morgan Spector, John Douglas Thompson, John Turturro, Marjan Neshat, Deirdre O’Connell and Jason Kravits; novelists Ayad Akhtar, Susan Choi, Joshua Cohen, Ottessa Moshfegh and Gary Shteyngart; authors and journalists Taffy Brodesser-Akner, Lauren Michele Jackson, Ariel Levy and Claudia Roth Pierpont; playwrights Chisa Hutchinson and Richard Wesley; comedian Eddie Brill; historians Sean Wilentz and Steven Zipperstein; and more to be announced. www.rothunbound.org
Following a sold-out run last fall at New York City Center, producers Seaview and Ambassador Theatre Group announced today that Tony Award® winner Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond will bring their acclaimed performances to Broadway in two-time Tony nominated director Michael Arden’s new production of Parade with book by two-time Tony Award winner, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Academy Award® winner Alfred Uhry, music and lyrics by three-time Tony Award winner Jason Robert Brown, and co-conceived by 21-time Tony Award-winning legend Harold Prince. The production will play Broadway’s Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre (242 West 45th Street) with previews starting Tuesday, February 21 ahead of a Thursday, March 16 official opening night. This strictly limited engagement will play through Sunday, August 6 only. Tickets for the highly anticipated production are on sale now via www.paradebroadway.com, www.telecharge.com, or by calling 800 447 7400.
