| Roger Q. Mason to Direct Jubilee for a New Vision with Carnegie Hall's Afrofuturism Festival on 2/21 | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 09:11 am EST 02/03/22 | |
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| National Queer Theater in partnership with The Dramatists Guild to present Jubilee for a New Vision: A Celebration of Black Trans and Gender Non-conforming Artists Featuring New Work by Ayla Xuan Chi Sullivan & Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko Directed by Roger Q. Mason Monday, February 21 at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space Presented as part of Carnegie Hall's 2022 Afrofuturism Festival National Queer Theater in partnership with The Dramatists Guild of America will present Jubilee for a New Vision: A Celebration of Trans and Gender Non-conforming Artists on Monday, February 21 at 7pm at The Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space (511 W 52nd Street, New York, NY 10019), presented as part of Carnegie Hall's citywide 2022 Afrofuturism Festival. Admission is Pay-What-You Can and tickets can be purchased in advance at www.nationalqueertheater.org. The performance will run approximately 70 minutes, with no intermission. The event will showcase excerpts from new work by the inaugural New Visions Fellows Ayla Xuan Chi Sullivan (they/them) and Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko (he/they) as well as New Visions Fellowship finalists Storm Thomas, Chantal Vorobei Thieves (she/her), and Alexander Paris (they/them) with performances by James A. Pierce III (he/him) and Ianne Fields Stewart (she/her/they/them). The evening will be directed and hosted by acclaimed Black and Filipinx playwright and New Visions Fellowship Lead Mentor Roger Q. Mason (they/them). "Trans and gender non-conforming playwrights, librettists, and performers are living out loud and daring to write it down," said New Visions Lead Mentor Roger Q. Mason. "Through their art, they envision Black Futures which transform systemic invisibility into fonts of joy, community, and infinite imagination. The Black Trans and Gender-nonconforming playwrights making work in America are at the forefront of Afrofuturism. They've had to make a way out of no way and still hold their heads high while striving." Everyone who visits or works in the Robert W. Wilson MCC Theater Space is required to provide proof of full vaccination and to remain masked at all times while in the theater. All audience members will need to provide proof of full vaccination and booster (if eligible), along with a government issued photo ID with matching name at the point of building entry on performance date. Please visit https://mcctheater.org/covid-safety/ for details on the venue's Covid Safety Policy. # # # # Ayla Xuân Chi Sullivan (they/them) is just your friendly neighborhood Black, Vietnamese, queer and trans musical theatre actor turned poet laureate turned playwright turned screenwriter and director from the lands of the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Ute colonially known as Denver, Colorado. Sullivan's work is often referred to as "love poems addressed to people in our community we are conditioned to forget": Black, Indigenous, Asian, Queer and Trans People of Color, those experiencing homelessness, immigrants, and anyone who is (or has been) incarcerated. Outside of theatre, they are a 2021 Almanac Screenwriters Alum and have written librettos with composer Jack Frerer for the Arapahoe Philharmonic and the Albany Symphony. Black African, non-binary trans, queer, Tanzanian-American award-winning playwright Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko (he/they) is a third culture queer raised in East and central Africa who currently lives in the United States. Nick is a nominated member of the nationally-accredited Playwright Foundations' RPI, Resident Playwright Initiative. Nick was a member of The Public Theater's (New York City) Emerging Writers' Group (EWG), Crowded Fire Writers' Lab (San Francisco), and countless other residencies. Nick has also dramaturged for the New Conservatory Theater Center (San Francisco). Nick graduated Magna Cum Laude from Columbia University (B.A.) and was a Point Scholar (largest global LGBTQIA+ scholarship foundation) during Nick's entire MFA also at Columbia University. Nick's plays have been produced in New York City, New Jersey, Florida, Berkeley, San Francisco, Wisconsin, Paris, South Africa, Italy and other countries. Roger Q. Mason (they/them) was recently dubbed by The Brooklyn Rail as "quickly becoming one of the most significant playwrights of the decade." Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway at Circle in the Square (Circle Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, New Group, The Fire This Time Festival, Dixon Place, American Theatre of Actors, Flea Theatre, and Access Theater; and regionally at McCarter Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Steep Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Theatre Rhinoceros, Open Fist Theatre Company, EST/LA, Coeurage Theatre, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Son of Semele, and Skylight Theatre. They are an honoree of the Kilroys List; the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award; the Fire This Time Festival Alumni Spotlight; and the Hollywood Fringe Festival Encore Producers Award. Mason's films have been recognized by the Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. They've screened at Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, Hollyshorts, Outfest, Bentonville Film Festival, Outshine Film Festival, and the Pan African Film Festival. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group, Primary Stages Writing Cohort, the co-host of Sister Roger's Gayborhood podcast, and the lead mentor of the Shay Foundation Fellowship and the New Visions Fellowship. Chantal Vorobei Thieves (she/her) is a multimedia artist who creates to both understand what is to be & to stay alive. She writes of spies & prophets, Y2K conspiracies & the relationship between abstraction, perception & interoception, using her body as a question mark meant to disturb our assumptions about what we say we know about what we are. Titles of her recent works include, Piano Lessons, Memory, Vein, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Terrorist, Mulata She-male Gets it From All Sides, & Not One & Simple, or, What Would James Baldwin Do? She was resident at the Queer Materials Lab, Translab, The Performance Intensive, PAPA, PAAFF, & the upcoming Session 9 of the Raw Materials Academie hosted at the ICA in Spring 2022. She is founding a church devoted to the worship & study of art called The Church of the Quarter-Closed Eyes. Storm Thomas is a black-trans drummer from Los Angeles who writes musicals: Notes on the Past (Trans Theater Fest), Ancient Future (Polyphone Festival), and Be Like Bone (in progress). Storm is a co-founder of Theater, But Dance. Teaching: Black Musical Theater (Uarts), Music for Performance (Playwrights), New Musical Theater Lab (Uarts), Theater of the Oppressed NYC. Performances: Animal Wisdom Album,The Skin of Our Teeth (TFANA), Futurity (Soho Rep/Ars Nova), Lexus Verses & Flow Season 3 Episode 1 feat. Jill Scott. New Visions Fellowship Finalist, NYSCA Grant Recipient FY2022. MFA, Sarah Lawrence College; In residence with MTF and teaching Musical Theater and Society at Sarah Lawrence as well as Queer Musical Theater at NYU/Tisch Drama this fall. The New Visions Fellowship is a rigorous year-long professional development initiative aimed at celebrating the brilliance of and uplifting Black TGNC writers in the face of the systemic exclusion that Black TGNC writers have endured within American theater. The inaugural fellowships were awarded to Nick Hadikwa Mwaluko (he/they) and Ayla Xuan Chi Sullivan (they/them). The program is helmed by Kilroy's List honoree Roger Q. Mason (they/them) along with Program Manager Jordan Stovall (they/them). |
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| Link | http://www.nationalqueertheater.org |
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