Kenyon Farrow

Tonight, and every Wednesday and Thursday this month Freedom Train Productions will show a new play in development by emerging Black LGBT playwrights.

Mission
Freedom Train Productions promotes new work written by up-and-coming Black playwrights. All of our plays feature Black LGBT hero and shero characters. Our playwrights have had work staged at Fresh Fruit Festival, Blue Heron Theatre, HERE Arts Center, Nuyorican Poets Cafe, WOW Cafe Theatre, and other NYC theaters.

History
Freedom Train Productions was launched in September 2006 with the support of a NYC Social Justice Fellowship from NYU Wagner School of Public Service and the OSI Foundation.

In 2007, we selected five exciting theatre artists: Andrea Davis, Jesse Cameron Alick, Nick Mwaluko, yvonne fly onakeme etaghene & Andre Lancaster to be our first Resident Playwrights in Development. All will be in a play development workshop facilitated by Djola Branner and Zina Camblin starting in April 2007. Their work will be presented as stage reading productions in August 2007.

Opening Night: August 1st!
Hosted by Djola Branner
Professor and Playwright (Mighty Real: Tribute to Sylvester)

And Every Following Wednesday and Thursday in August 2007
8/1, 8/2, 8/8, 8/9, 8/15, 8/16, 8/22, 8/23, 8/29, and 8/30

@ South Oxford Space
138 South Oxford Street in Brooklyn
All Stage Readings are free and begin at 7pm.

Opening Night, August 1st & August 2nd:
Are Women Human?
by Nick Mwaluko
Director: Alicia Dhyana House
What if as a child you were told by a deity that you were meant to be the opposite sex? Could you be courageous for your god or goddess in the face of intolerance? Are Women Human? by Nick Mwaluko (Columbia MFA) is a play about one person’s struggle for acceptance and love.

August 8 - 9th:
Super
by Andre Lancaster
Director: Christopher Burris
Meet Shannon Tubbs Jr: activist, filmmaker, and professional cynic. Dumped by his boyfriend and jumped by a homophobic attacker, in Andre Lancaster’s Super, ancestral forces help Shannon re-discover the superhero and superlover, arguably, within us all.

August 15 - 16th:
Steal Away
by Andrea E. Davis
Director: C. Sala Hewitt
In Steal Away, Romi is a young Black woman who lives in the Underground, a community founded by runaway enslaved peoples. But after she comes out, Romi confronts this society’s sexism, homophobia, and stubborn sense of liberation.

August 22 - 23rd:
LIKE WILDFIRE
by yvonne fly onakeme etaghene
Director: Gloria Bigelow
If compassion became a contagious disease, what would it look like? Poet, performance activist & playwright yvonne fly onakeme etaghene answers this question in a play that is a poetic exploration of humanity in a brutally apathetic world. These characters delve to the depths of love, activism & madness, and must face their fears to survive & thrive: com/passionately.

August 29 - 30th:
Grace
by Jesse Cameron Alick
Director: Andrew K. Russell
Remember that guy who you swore was gay but turned out to be metrosexual? Or what about that best friend you always wanted to date? According to the world of Grace, you were lovers - in a past life! Playwright Jesse Alick calls Grace a remix of Judeo-Christian beliefs with Buddhist tradition weaved into a story about how some things in life are beyond our control. Freedom Train Productions calls Grace genius.

Freedom Train Productions is a member of The Alliance of Resident Theatres of New York.