AMERICAN THEATRE | Theater J Commissions 7 Playwrights for Expanding the Canon Initiative

WASHINGTON, D.C.: Theater J has chosen seven playwrights for its Expanding the Canon initiative, introduced earlier this 12 months. Playwrights Harley Elias, Zachariah Ezer, Carolivia Herron, Jesse Jae Hoon, M.J. Kang, Thaddeus McCants, and Kendell Pinkney will create new full-length performs over the subsequent two and a half years that thematically and visually middle ethnically and racially numerous Jewish narratives. The program seeks to appropriate and broaden the traditionally restricted portrayals of Jewishness on U.S. levels and world wide.  

After receiving submissions from 82 writers, Theater J inventive employees interviewed finalists and chosen the seven playwrights who will obtain a $10,000 fee and a $5,000 developmental funds for use for readings, workshops, analysis, and journey over the subsequent two and a half years.

“I am beyond excited about this project,” mentioned Edlavitch DCJCC CEO Dava Schub in a press release. “As the JCC in our nation’s capital, and with the support of the Covenant Foundation, we are poised to expand the narrative of Jewish stories being told on stages across the country and create space for new extraordinary storytellers to be seen, celebrated, and supported through this three-year commission process.”

The program kicked off Aug. 28-30 with a three-day intensive Beit Midrash (studying house) led by Rosh Beit Sabrina Sojourner, a Shaliakh Tzibur and nationally acknowledged Jewish chief. This intensive studying course of allowed the playwrights to have interaction with texts and focus on Jewish thought and custom inspiring them as they start to craft their performs.

Throughout the fee, writers will meet month-to-month to proceed to be taught, share further sources, and workshop written materials. Excerpts of the completed scripts will probably be shared in a ultimate gathering in December 2024. All commissioned scripts will probably be strongly thought-about for Theater J mainstage productions. 

“I’m thrilled to be part of Expanding the Canon,” mentioned Sojourner in a press release, “to be part of an organization committed to supporting, nurturing, and enhancing connections between Jewish artists of color. Most importantly, we are all looking forward to the stories they will bring to the larger Jewish community and the world.”

Expanding the Canon is made doable largely by funds granted by The Covenant Foundation. The Beit Midrash is made doable partially by a microgrant from the Jews of Color Initiative.  

“Being from a mixed family of Ashkenazi and Mexican Syrian Jewish descent,” mentioned Theater J’s managing director, David Lloyd Olson, in a press release, “I have always understood the Jewish experience to be more vibrant and diverse than the majority of Jewish playwriting. We are grateful for the support of the Covenant Foundation, whose funding will help us add layers to the portrait of Jewishness by commissioning plays that center the multiracial and multiethnic stories that have always been and will continue to be a part of the Jewish experience.”

Harley Elias is a playwright and performer from New York City. He has been the recipient of residencies on the Atlantic Center for the Arts, with Resonance Ensemble, a Fulbright Grant, a Samuel French OOB Award, and the Young Playwrights Award. His Play #3 is printed by Samuel French. He holds a B.A. and M.A. in historical past from Stanford and is presently pursuing an MFA within the playwriting program at Brown University.

Zachariah Ezer’s performs embrace The Freedom Industry (The Playwrights Center, New York Stage & Film), Address the Body! (The Echo Theater Company), and An Unclear World (Hi-ARTS), amongst others. Selected awards embrace the University of Texas’s James A. Michener Fellowship, the Playwrights Center’s Core Apprenticeship, Hi-ARTS’ Critical Breaks Residency, Echo Theater Company’s National Young Playwrights Residency, Town Stages’ Sokoloff Arts Creative Fellowship, Best Play on the Woodside Players of Queens Summer Play Festival, BUFU’s EYEDREAM Residency, and Wesleyan University’s Olin Fellowship.

Carolivia Herron is a Jewish African American novelist, librettist, and educator who teaches classics within the English Department of Howard University. Her printed and produced works embrace Thereafter Johnnie (novel), Let Freedom Sing: The Story of Marian Anderson (opera libretto, music composed by Bruce Adolphe); Nappy Hair, Always An Olivia (kids’s books); and The Selected Works of Angelina Weld Grimké (scholarship). She has additionally held professorial appointments at Harvard University, Mount Holyoke College, Chico State University, and the College of William and Mary.

Jesse Jae Hoon is a playwright, actor, and organizer. Plays embrace Somebody Is Looking Back at Me, Dong Xuan Center (2022 Princess Grace Fellowship Finalist, 2019 O’Neill NPC Finalist), On the Clock, I’ve Got A Sinking Feeling within the Pit of My Stomach, The House of Billy Paul, Emergency Wine & Cheese Fundraiser of the Amagansett Democrats’ Association (2022 O’Neill NPC Semifinalist), and 12 Chairs. MFA in playwriting from Hunter College, BFA in drama from NYU Tisch (Playwrights Horizons). Organizer with Democratic Socialists of America and Equity Next.

M.J. Kang is a playwright, actor, and director, based mostly in Los Angeles and Montreal. She’s lately been awarded The Breath Project New Play Award 2022 and has been commissioned by Portland Playhouse, Shotgun Players, and AFO Solo Shorts.  She continues to be a part of the Playwrights Group at Company of Angels (second 12 months), The Barrow Group’s Restorative Stories with Seth Barrish (second 12 months,) and is a part of the Writer’s Pool at Playground-LA. She’s had her performs produced by Son of Semele, Pan Asian Rep, East West Players, Theater Passe Muraille, Tarragon Theater, Factory Theater, Blyth Festival Theater, Shakespeare in Action, AFO Solo Shorts, Shotgun Players, and plenty of others.

Thaddeus McCants is a Brooklyn-based author, director, and performer initially from Madison, Wisc. As a playwright, he’s a present NYTW 2050 Fellow, Theater Masters Visionary Playwright, KCACTF National Finalist, Goldberg New Play Prize Finalist, and has been a Semi-Finalist for each the Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference & American Blues Theatre Blue Ink Award.

Kendell Pinkney is a Brooklyn-based theatre artist, producer, and rabbi who creates artwork on the intersections of race, ethnicity, collective reminiscence, non secular identification, and sacred textual content. His collaborative theatre works have been offered or developed at venues equivalent to 54 Below, Joe’s Pub, LABA @ the 14th St. Y, and Two River Theatre, to call a couple of. Most lately, he was featured within the acclaimed docuseries The New Jew with actor-comedian Guri Alfi and on Crooked Media’s Unholier than Thou podcast.

Theater J is an expert theatre and program of the Edlavitch DC Jewish Community Center (EDCJCC) which goals to rejoice, discover, and battle with the complexities and nuances of each the Jewish expertise and the common human situation. As one of many nation’s largest and most distinguished Jewish theatres, Theater J goals to protect and broaden a wealthy Jewish theatrical custom and to create group and commonality by means of theatregoing experiences.

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