DUTCH KINGS

What does it mean to be young, black and ready?

Today is the Annual Block Shop Double Dutch Competition and the Dutch Kings title is up for whichever team has the BADDEST, lyrical jumpers on the block. What starts off as a fun competition turns out to be an unraveling of self-identity in a quickly changing neighborhood. What are young black boys to do when once holy ground is suddenly unsafe and all they’re taught is that uptownies have come to take over their block?

"Stay ready so you don't have to get ready."

Actors:

1 Black Female-Identifying, Mid/Late 40s

4 Black Male Identifying, Early/Late 20s (must be able to MOVE)

* Brave New Works 2021 Zoom Reading Series Winner (Brave New World Repertory Theatre)

*American Blues Theater 2021 Blue Ink Playwriting Award (Semi-Finalist)

TUWE TUWE/ SONGS BLACK GIRLS SING ON SWINGS WHEN NO ONE IS WATCHING

A movement based piece following four women, BEBE (bay-bay), CECE (see-see), FEFE (fee-fee), and DEDE (day-day) on their journey back to rekindling a special friendship that  they’ve held for quite some time. The recent passing of “Momma”, the mother-figure in each of  their lives, has brought them back together at their old childhood meetup place; the playground.  Upon arrival it is quickly revealed why they haven’t seen each other in a while as Bebe seems to be the source of the group’s issues. Tuwe Tuwe (“too-way, too-way” )(translation: “Sorry, Sorry” from the Ghanian children’s song) is a story about the seasons of  love, heartache, and self-discovery as new revelations of black womanhood come with those  seasons. Although seasons are cyclical, the lessons that each of these women come in and out of  those seasons with, are not. Through poetry and motion, we watch these women learn from one  another in ways they don’t expect. 

Actors:

4 Black Female Identifying / Age disparity is up to you

River Ain’t Got no Rhyme

River loves Sunny.

Sunny loves River.

River is going to New York to chase his dreams as a tap dancer.

Sunny is getting married.

Is it better to love and potentially fail, ruining a friendship since diapers, or to remain safe and never try at all?

River loves Sunny…. Sunny loves River…. the only way they can say the truth is through the tippity-clickity-clack of their tap shoes.

who knew tap was a love language?

Actors:

1 Black Male-Identifying / Mid-20s

1 Black Female-Identifying /Mid-20s

BEBE’s KIDS

It’s the first Thanksgiving since Stevie’s suicide. Things are a bit awkward to say the least. It is the first time anyone has come together since his funeral. Bebe’s (bay-bay’s) Kids is the second play of the Sorry Sorry Play Collection (the first being Tuwe Tuwe), following the lineage of Bebe and her children. This is a story of sibling love and trying to figure out how to keep the family unit intact after experiencing trauma. (*loosely based on the Kalief Browder story)

Actors:

3 Black Male-Identifying

2 Black Female-Identifying

BAraka’s Gone Rogue

Clay Williams is ecstatic to be interning with Mr. Baraka, one of the best defense lawyers in the country. It’s a dream come true until he realizes that Mr. Baraka is not only trying the case they’re working on but also his blackness. A nightmare come to life, Mr. Baraka seems to have gone mad. But what if he’s not just spewing nonsense? What if… he’s right about Clay? About all of us?

Actors:

1 Black Male-Identifying / Mid-40s

1 Black Male-Identifying / Mid-20s

“hello, My name is dwight howard”

Nathan enters the bathroom to try and calm himself down from a long day in court only to find himself even more stressed when a stranger on the other side of the stall knows his name. The stranger baggers him for a while until he figures out its his deceased son. Is Nathan also.. dead?

Actors:

1 Black Male-Identifying / Mid-40s

1 Black Male-Identifying / Mid-20s

1 Black Female-Identifying/ Mid-40s

Poemario: Poems to the body next to me

A short collection of poems dedicated to the gray areas of intimacy and vulnerability.