WHAT: A Brothers’ Network special event – a performance and discussion of “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” by August Wilson

WHEN: Sunday, Jan. 22, 2012, at 3 p.m.

WHERE: Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey Place, Philadelphia

The Brothers Network introduces its newest community partner, Plays & Players Theater, celebrating its 100th anniversary with August Wilson’s “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone,” the first of two plays this season to look back at life 100 years ago.

In the same beautiful historic theater at 1714 Delancey Place lives a newly reinvented professional theater company dedicated to Philadelphia’s talented emerging artists. Don’t miss this opportunity to see some of the most talented African-American local actors tackle one of the greatest plays by one of the greatest story tellers of the 20th century!

It’s 1911, and as emancipated slaves flood north in search of employment and a chance to start over, Seth and Bertha Holly’s boarding house in Pittsburgh offers a new place to call home in this drama by the multiple Pulitzer Prize-winning author of “The Piano Lesson,” “Seven Guitars” and “Fences.” When an angry and lost man arrives looking for his wife, forcibly removed from him years ago when he was captured and put in a chain gang by a man named Joe Turner, these once strangers are forced to confront their own demons and to come together to help him find his way.

Starring Kash Goins, Damien Wallace, James Tolbert, Cherie Jazmyn, Jamal Douglas, Candace Thomas, Mlé Chester, Bob Weick, Lauryn Jones, Brett Gray, and Erin Stewart.

Directed by Daniel Student

TWO CHANCES TO SAVE!

Join us January 22 for a Brothers’ Network Special Event. See “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” at 3 p.m. and stay for a talkback with the show’s cast, led by local actor Johnny Hobbs, Jr. and local playwright Quinn D. Eli, as they discuss the play, the continued relevance of August Wilson’s work, and the challenges and opportunities for African-American theater in Philadelphia today.

Tickets only $18 (a savings of $7 off the regular price!) when you use the code BroNet to order tickets for this performance only.

Can’t make the 22nd? Use the code BROTHERS to save $5 off a regular price ticket for the run of the show (Jan. 19-Feb. 4) when purchasing at www.playsandplayers.org or by calling 800-595-4TIX .

About the Guest Speakers

Johnnie Hobbs, Jr. is a product of the School District of Philadelphia. He is proud of his thirty-plus-years’ affiliation with the nationally recognized Freedom Theatre and played key roles in many of its most critically acclaimed productions. Most notably he has appeared in “Black Nativity” and “Black Picture Show.” The three-time Barrymore nominee has also starred in “Simply Heavenly” with Melba Moore and Zooman and the Los Angeles premiere of “The Sign” with Virginia Capers. Mr. Hobbs has enjoyed much critical success with the works of August Wilson. He distinguished himself in such plays as “Fences,” “Joe Turner’s Come and Gone” and “Two Trains Running,” with the last under the direction of Walter Dallas, setting box office records for attendance at the Philadelphia Drama Guild. Noteworthy film credits include principal roles in “The In Crowd,” “Twelve Monkeys,” “Snipes,” “Up Close and Personal,” “Rocky Balboa” and most recently “Cover,” directed by Bill Duke. Entering his 29th year, Mr. Hobbs is a tenured associate professor in the theater department at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he received the Mary Lou Beitzel Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1996. He is also the chairman of the Advisory Board for the University of the Arts’ Academic Achievement Program and the advisor to the African-American Student Union and the African Diaspora Collective.

Quinn D. Eli teaches English, creative writing, and theater at the Community College of Philadelphia. He is also a former PDC Playwright-in-Residence at Plays & Players Theatre. Two of his short plays, “Small Portions” and “Running Amok,” appear in the 2010 and 2011 editions of Best American Ten-Minute Plays. Longer plays include “Hazardous,” produced last year at Society Hill Playhouse; “The Sex Tape Play,” developed by Philadelphia Theatre Workshop; and “Hot Black/Asian Action,” a satire about sexual and racial stereotypes that premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival. He is a member of Philadelphia Dramatists Center and InterAct Theatre’s Playwrights Forum.

Theatre Double returns with new version of last year’s holiday hit

Black Nativity

“Mommy where does Christmas come from” http://youtu.be/1B8hFOyj-Gs
 
 Philadelphia, November 6, 2011 –

The retold version of the historic holiday hit, Black Nativity, “a Holiday Musical Spectacle” will premiere at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion to run December 8th –December 31 Thursday- Saturday 8pm Sundays 4 (no performances Christmas eve or Christmas). Directed and Choreographed by the New York Times and the Village Voice’s acclaimed director and Theatre Double founder, Michael LeLand, Black Nativity is a re-envisioned musical featuring music often used to punctuate the exhilarating highs and abysmal lows of the African-American experience such as gospel, spirituals, the blues and jazz.  This show combines stellar visual effects and a multi-generational cast to create a holiday spectacle for all ages, heritages and faiths.“We knew that we had to do this show again due to the popularity of last year’s production” said LeLand. “Additionally, we feel that the nativity story has become a lost part of the Christmas story.  We are helping to create a new holiday tradition by giving people a chance to enjoy this classic story with their friends and family in such a beautiful and accessible venue in the heart of Center City Philadelphia.”
 
Black Nativity runs from December 8-31 (Thursday – Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 4pm) ~ 2110 Chestnut Street ~  Philadelphia , PA 19103. 
Tickets: $25-$35 (Student and Senior Discounts also offered). Tickets can be purchased at  
 Philadelphia, November 6, 2011 –

The retold version of the historic holiday hit, Black Nativity, “a Holiday Musical Spectacle” will premiere at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Communion to run December 8th –December 31 Thursday- Saturday 8pm Sundays 4 (no performances Christmas eve or Christmas). Directed and Choreographed by the New York Times and the Village Voice’s acclaimed director and Theatre Double founder, Michael LeLand, Black Nativity is a re-envisioned musical featuring music often used to punctuate the exhilarating highs and abysmal lows of the African-American experience such as gospel, spirituals, the blues and jazz.  This show combines stellar visual effects and a multi-generational cast to create a holiday spectacle for all ages, heritages and faiths.“We knew that we had to do this show again due to the popularity of last year’s production” said LeLand. “Additionally, we feel that the nativity story has become a lost part of the Christmas story.  We are helping to create a new holiday tradition by giving people a chance to enjoy this classic story with their friends and family in such a beautiful and accessible venue in the heart of Center City Philadelphia.”
 
Black Nativity runs from December 8-31 (Thursday – Saturday at 8 pm, Sunday at 4pm) ~ 2110 Chestnut Street ~  Philadelphia , PA 19103. 
Tickets: $25-$35 (Student and Senior Discounts also offered). Tickets can be purchased at www.Theatredouble.net
LANGSTON HUGHES: An American Celebration
Touring Schools 2011

The Brothers’ Network is honored to bring an outstanding and multifaceted talent to Philadelphia as the Executive Producer of “A Boy and His Soul,” the critically praised one-man autobiographical play by actor/playwright/director and West Philly native Colman Domingo.

Domingo will perform the play on Sunday, Oct. 16, in the Red Room of the Society Hill Playhouse.
“Colman Domingo has blazed a path for others to follow with his unique combination of breadth and depth of skill, range of characters, and personal style,” said Philadelphia actor-director and 2011 Barrymore nominee James Ijames.  “As an example of the many roles African-American men take on in their own lives, he embodies our future.” The Brothers’ Network is honored to be able to bring this outstanding talent back to Philadelphia.

Domingo has established himself as one of the most gifted, versatile, and stylish actors on and off Broadway. The West Philadelphia native got his start in acting on the West Coast before taking the East Coast by storm with his Obie Award-winning portrayal of three dramatically different characters in “Passing Strange,” the critically acclaimed musical by Stew that eventually became a Spike Lee film. His other acting credits include roles in Athol Fugard’s “Smoke,” the Kander and Ebb musical “The Scottsboro Boys,” and the revival of “Chicago” on Broadway.

The reading of “A Boy and His Soul” takes place at 8 p.m. on Sunday, Oct. 16, at the Society Hill Playhouse, 507 South 8th Street, Philadelphia. A portion of the proceeds benefits the Human Rights Campaign. For tickets please the Society Hill Playhouse box office at 215-923-0210.

WHO: Six playwrights, six directors and 18 actors

WHAT: Six classic African American plays, reimagined and reconceived as ten-minute works in a single festival, “48 Hours in Harlem”

WHEN: Sunday, Aug 14, 2011, at 7 p.m.

WHERE: Harlem School of the Arts, 645 St. Nicholas Ave., New York, NY 10030

Take six young playwrights - Ayanna Maia, Dominique Morisseau, Keith Josef Adkins, Derek Lee McPhatter, Mfoniso Udofia, and Harrison David Rivers – six directors - Christopher Burris, Tamilla Woodard, Melissa Maxwell, Russell G. Jones, Nicole A. Watson and LA Williams –  and 18 actors - Bruce Lemon, Laura Johnston, Axel Avin Jr., Chanel Carroll, Heather Simms,Crystal Dickinson, Gillian Glasco, Jamie Lincoln Smith, Jocelyn Bioh, Elain Graham, Samuel T. Gaines, Willie Teacher, Tamela Aldridge, Marcus Naylor, Alano Miller, Gerard Joseph, Ayo Cummings, and Charles Browning. Bring them together in a Harlem studio and give them one weekend to refashion six celebrated plays by black playwrights into ten-minute-long distillations.

This is the result. Harlem 9, a collaboration among nine producing companies dedicated to exploring the past, present and future of black culture, presents “48 Hours in Harlem,” a creative reimagining of

Dutchman by Amiri Baraka
Zooman and the Sign by Charles Fuller
Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy
Day of Absence by Douglass Turner Ward
Black Terror by Richard Wesley
The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe

Tickets for this twist on the 24-hour theater festival are $15 in advance and can be purchased online. Tickets at the door are $20, cash only. For more information, visit the Harlem9 website.

48 HOURS IN HARLEM
with Harlem9
August 14th – Harlem School of the Arts

Sunday, August 14th at 7pm

645 St. Nicholas Avenue
New York, NY
www.harlem9.org
tickets: $15 advance (http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/186991)
       $20 door

Featured playwrights: Keith Josef Adkins, Harrison David Rivers, Dominique Morriseau, Derek Lee McPhatter, Ayanna Maia, and Mfoniso Udofia

Featured directors: Niegel Jason Smith, Nicole A. Watson, Christopher Burris, Melissa Maxwell, Russell G. Jones, and Tamilla Woodard

Harlem9: a collaborative of producers that explore the past, present and future of black culture and celebrate our rich history of storytelling. 48 HOURS IN HARLEM stimulates emerging African American artists. 6 playwrights are offered 6 classic, provocative plays. They are challenged to re-conceive these classics into a ten-minute format. 6 savvy directors and 18 accomplished actors will bring these raw impressions to life, all in a weekend, to be performed on Sunday evening.

The 2nd Annual Philadelphia Urban Theatre Festival 

Check the website for updated information! 

Sept 19th – Oct 9th 

Adrienne Theatre 

Contact the creator/producer of the festival at:  gkputf@gmail.com

We are proud to announce the Philadelphia debut of Rennie Harris RHAW July 16,2011 @ The Suzanne Roberts Theater. RHAW will feature the choreographic works of Rodney Hill of the “Untouchables,” Moncell Durden of Moptop Crew , Raphael Xavier of Olive Dance Company and Rennie Harris of Rennie Harris Puremovement.

Performance July 16, 2011: Matinee @2:30 & Evening@ 7:30pm Conceived 2007 Rennie Harris Awe-inspiring Works is a youth organization driven by community outreach, education i.e. lectures and classes as well as mentorship.  Harris’ inspiration for this youth driven company was inspired by the overwhelming interest from teens and young adults to join his internationally renowned company Rennie Harris Puremovement.   RHAW will forge new paths for young hip hop hopefuls as well as present hip hop in its “RHAW-est.” form.  As we take it back to basics.

“I am inspired to commune with the humanitarian conscious of us all.  My hope is to communicate to ones primal self, acknowledging one’s spirit,  one’s right to experience, to love, to worship freely as it was intended. I am awestruck; I am inspired to continue touching people’s lives. Challenging realities through my work. This is my small but necessary contribution to the world at large.   RHAW will carry on the legacy of freedom by using hip hop & funk dance as a free expression. Proving once again that we the people have a right to be heard and to be loved…”- Rennie Harris- For Pre-View & Review: Contact company manager Rodney Hill@267-236-4097 email: Rhill@rhpm.org

Click here Tickets on sale–Going Fast

- www.philadelphiatheatrecompany.org/events/RHAW.html

Recently, For Colored Girls hit movie theatres nationwide to much fanfare. Despite one’s personal feelings about Tyler Perry’s artistic merits, one can at least celebrate the revival of Ntozake Shange’s masterpiece, which powerfully uncovers the experiences and psychologies of African American women. If nothing else, the film, like Stephen Spielberg’s The Color Purple, reacquaints the masses with black feminist classics with which many of us first fell in love in high school.

But here’s another classroom assignment: Find a post-August Wilson piece of art—be it a novel, play, film, or otherwise–that similarly portrays black men in all of their variety, complexity and progress.

Don’t worry—I’ll wait.

On second thought, I won’t. Nor should you. The Brothers’ Network knows that black men have been waiting far too long for art to reflect reality, for the media to portray black men accurately. Through its latest strategic partnership with Flashpoint Theatre Co., The Brothers’ Network has taken the initiative in redirecting society’s lens from its one-dimensional focus on black men as predators, victims and failures, to a wider recognition of the depth and diversity of their identities and experiences.

For many, this change of course comes just in time. From TBN’s vital current role in producing the play “Run, Mourner, Run,” an exploration of racism and sexuality, to its ongoing projects that explore the intersection of race, gender and sexual orientation, this new opportunity for black men to share their authentic voices is, some would say, the beginning of another cultural renaissance, similar to that of the Black Arts movement.

The complex inner lives of African Americans—as so poignantly documented in For Colored Girls and The Color Purple– is often unseen from the black male perspective. But as illustrated by its partnerships with Philadelphia Theatre Company for the Daniel Beaty play Resurrection in 2009 and August Wilson’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom in 2010, The Brothers’ Network has a track record of collaborating with theatrical productions that speak to race, gender and sexual orientation—an extremely rare undertaking for a black organization.

TBN found it imperative to enter its current production partnership with Flashpoint Theatre Co. for the staging of Run, Mourner, Run partly because the phenomenal talent behind its creation speaks to black male diversity and accomplishment. The play’s scribe Tarell Alvin McCraney is America’s most promising young playwright. Gay, black and just recently turned 30, his play Brothers Size—started as a Yale MFA class project—earned him the first New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award in 2009. In addition, Run, Mourner, Run was adapted from the critically acclaimed book Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan, also openly gay and one of today’s most important African American writers.

TBN takes its commitment to the exploration of the black male experience seriously. As a production partner, it has a significant role in ensuring Run, Mourner, Run’s local, regional and national success by working closely with the managing director and the artistic director, fine tuning the marketing, and identifying and developing key partnerships with arts and culture organizations. The play’s special Oct. 30 showing and reception sold out, a testament to TBN’s dedication and the community’s hunger for black performance art that speaks to them.

Ever pushing forward, TBN brings the dialogue on racism and sexuality offstage with a Nov. 17 discussion on Run, Mourner, Run and Kenan’s Let the Dead Bury Their Dead. TBN is also committed to partner with the Philadelphia Theatre Company for its February 2012 production of Race by David Mamet as part of its 45th anniversary season.
By entering into strategic partnerships and tapping into brilliant black artists and thinkers, TBN is introducing the community to the black men we know, men who defy the racial, sexual and intellectual stereotypes imposed on them by society. This movement is for a male identity not encroached in violence and shame, but steeped in compassion and inclusion. This movement is for the straight, gay and postmodern-sexual, not for statistics. This movement is for art that authentically reflects diverse black lives. This is for Baldwin. This is for Kenan. This is for colored boys.

Gerry Christopher Johnson is a contributing editor to The Brothers’ Network.

Tearing Down the Walls
A New Musical By Daniel Beaty (the director, producer and writer of RESURRECTION.)
“The next big bright light of the theater world”

Dietrice Bolden as Rhonda

Umi Shakti as Renee

Adrienne Moore as Angel Unaware

Kelechi Ezie as Jessica

Jevon Mcferrin as Dennis (He is the son of Jazz vocalist *Bobby Mcferrin, * “Don’t
Worry Be Happy”)

Rumando Kelley as Tyson

Creative Team:

Daniel Beaty — Book, Lyrics and Director

Music by — Daniel Beaty, Jamal Joseph and Charles Mack

Scenic/ Projection Art work by — Bryan Collier

Costume Designer — Catherine (Cat) Fisher

Lighting Designer- Andrew Merkel

Choreography – Dell Howlett

Production Stage Manger/ Assistant Director — John Scutchins

Producers:

The Riverside Theatre/ Jewel Kinch — Thomas / Executive and Artistic Director

New Heritage Theatre Group/ Voza Rivers / Executive Producer / Jamal Joseph /
Executive Artistic Director

Walk Tall Girl Productions/ Marcia Pendleton/ Executive Director

"Tearing Down the Walls Video"