“English, always.” That’s the motto for one classroom in Iran, as a group of students struggles to learn a new language. If only they can conquer this mysterious tongue, doors will open to new jobs, deeper family connections, and boundless opportunities. But as they practice, practice, practice, desperate not to fail (or, worst of all, sound like Borat), understanding a new world might also mean leaving their old one behind.
Amali is a 12-year-old black girl who finds herself on the edge of womanhood and is having trouble navigating her new world. Her mom’s always busy and her sister is about to have a baby of her own. Her friend Marina has ditched her, but her new best friend Finn is always there to listen–until he can’t take it anymore. Her fascination with her changing body is one thing, but her fascination with the story of siblings killed in the woods is another thing entirely.
In 1846, Philomena is a pregnant slave woman assisting her owner, Dr. George Barry, as he tries to find the cure for fistulas and tending to his patients, other enslaved black women. Everything changes when he receives a new patient. Inspired by the life and experimentation of Dr. J Marion Sims and the lives of Anarcha, Lucy, and Betsey, three of the enslaved black women he worked on, Behind the Sheet explores the untold stories behind the rise of modern gynecology.
In this fierce and feverish comedy, a gang of teenage girls gather in a treehouse to summon the ghost of Pablo Escobar. Are they messing with the actual spirit of the infamous cartel kingpin? Or are they really just messing with each other? A rollercoaster ride through the danger and damage of girlhood. The teenage wasteland has never been so much twisted fun!
AS IS is the story of four Big Beautiful Black Women living the everyday struggle of trying to lose a few pounds and navigating their Big Black Womeness in the confined spaces of their lives. D. Everette has found her stride as a college professor. Antonia seems to have stumbled upon the perfect manifestation of Black love. Beverly has her children and her grief. It is young Camille who threatens to unravel the four way friendship with her inability to find and relegate herself to a confined space of her own.
America v. 2.1 is a day in the life of a troupe of historical re-enactors charged with telling the tragic story of what was once was the American Negro, a woeful race once featured prominently in the American landscape, but whose time has been extinguished at own foolish hand. The troupe finds themselves at odds with the state of their own existences while being painfully oblivious to the parallels and intersections their lives draw to those of the very Negroes whose story they are bound to tell. As this oblivion fades and they are faced with their stark reality, this day in the life of actors becomes a day of reckoning.
Juliet is losing her marriage. Her mother Pam is losing her memory. And there’s a mysterious forest growing in and around their living room. A play about grief, weird love, and what to do when there aren’t any right answers.
Georgia’s husband, Corbin, has been offered his dream job. But there’s a catch: in order to take the position, he has to give up a big piece of their personal privacy. On the precipice of this life-changing decision, Corbin’s integrity, Georgia’s own needs, and their marriage all hang in the balance.
Seven college students gather for a DIY self-defense workshop after a sorority sister is raped. They learn to use their bodies as weapons. They learn to fend off attackers. They learn “not to be a victim.” Learning self-defense becomes a channel for their rage, anxiety, confusion, trauma and desire – lots of desire. HOW TO DEFEND YOURSELF explores what you want, how to ask for it, and the insidious ways rape culture steals one’s body and sense of belonging.
With his 13th birthday around the corner, Totome is excited to meet “the butcher” and finally become a man. His mother, however, hopes to keep him whole for just a little while longer. Set in a dystopian future, BEFORE EVENING COMES explores what becomes of black boys, men, and women in an America rooted in the founding myths that the black male body is either a commodity or a threat.
