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Event
The Eighth-Annual BRING A WEASEL AND A PINT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD FESTIVAL
The Eighth-Annual BRING A WEASEL AND A PINT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD FESTIVAL
with the Brooklyn College MFA Playwrighting Department PRESENTS
A WORLD PREMIERE OF THREE NEW PLAYS BASED ON THE AMERICAN MINSTREL SHOW
The Eighth-Annual BRING A WEASEL AND A PINT OF YOUR OWN BLOOD FESTIVAL will present three world premiere plays at the East 13th Street Theater from September 5th through September 8th.
The Weasel Festival is produced by playwrights in the MFA program at Brooklyn College. The plays produced in the festival are adaptations of a common source material. This year's Weasel festival features talented alumni and current students Dennis A. Allen II, Kim Davies, and Amina Henry with directors Christopher Burris and Benjamin Haber Kamine. Drawn from the American Minstrel Show, three imaginatively disturbing theatrical landscapes, populated by the surreal and the frighteningly familiar, expose the lingering consequences of blackface minstrelsy in "post racial" America.
LOCATION: East 13th Street Theatre, 136 East 13th St
(btwn. 3rd & 4th Ave - 4, 5, 6, N, R train to 14th St, Union Sq)
DATES/TIMES: Thurs. September 5, Fri. September 6, Sat. September 7 at 8pm & Sun. September 8 @ 3pm
TICKETS: $18/15 students, reserve tickets at brownpapertickets.com (suggested ticket price)
Runtime is under 90 minutes
Each night features all three new plays:
Are you Not Entertained? By Dennis A. Allen II
It's "America's Next Top Minstrel Group," where white and black minstrels coon it out to see who has what it takes to make it to the top.
Miss Authenticity By Kim Davies
A twenty-minute one-person show in which Lena Dunham has an existential crisis over accusations of racism on "Girls" except that Lena Dunham is played by a forty-something black man.
The Minstrel Show By Amina Henry
Young newlyweds go on a destination honeymoon weekend to Detroit to make their racial fantasies come true.
The cast includes: Kyle Brown, Christopher Burke*, Ugo Chukwu*, Brian D. Coats*, Suzanne Darrell, Jamyl Dobson*, Jonathan Dryud*, Jenny Efremova, Aaron Parker Fouhey, Kevin R. Free*, McKenzie Frye*, Megan Gaffney*, Eric Lockley, Evan Maltby, Celestine Rae*, Jonathan H. Ragins, Jonathan Todd Ross*, James Scruggs, Nicholas Viselli* (* denotes member of Actors Equity)
The creative team includes: Titus Burgess (composer), Megan Carter (dramaturg), Alex Gould (fight director), Charlie Forster (lighting designer), Benson Knight (set designer), Teri Madonna (sound designer), Michael Norton (stage management), Maria Ozmen (costume designer), Joya Powell (choreographer)
The Festival is co-curated by Erin Courtney and Mac Wellman.
Jessica Almasy, Kate Benson, and William Burke produce.
The experimental Brooklyn College MFA program, led by the celebrated playwright Mac Wellman, has decisively shaped New York downtown theatre over the last 10 years. Alumni of the program include Thomas Bradshaw, Annie Baker, Young Jean Lee and Ken Urban. The program has spawned the annual Weasel Festival, now in its eighth year, as a vital breeding ground for new work. Previous playwright/producers include Caitlin Brubacher, Benjamin Gassman, Alexandra Collier, Ariel Stess, Sara Farrington, Normandy Sherwood, Erin Courtney, Kate Ryan, Paul Ketchum, Megan Murtha, Mark Sitko, LaShea Delaney, Scott Adkins, Sibyl Kempson, Richard Toth, Bianca Bagatourian, Susan Dunlap, Trish Harnetiaux, Laura Jones-Katz, Karinne Keithley, Kristen Kosmas, Valerie Work, Corina Copp and Kobun Kaluza.
PLAYWRIGHTS (BIOS)
DENNIS A. ALLEN II: New York native, his play "THE MUD IS THICKER IN MISSISSIPPI" directed by Christopher Burris, won the 2010 Samuel French Off-Off Broadway Short Play Festival. His plays have been produced and/or developed by, Variations Theatre Group, Barrow Group Theatre, The Bowery Poetry Club (Sticky), JACK, and ActNow Foundation. Recipient of the 2012 and 2013 Himan Brown Creative Writing Award. Collaborative Writer for The American Slavery Project's 2012 "Unheard Voices". Member of Liberation Theatre Company's 2011 and 2012 Black Playwright's Group. Featured playwright for 2013 The Fire This Time Festival and Harlem9's 2013 48 hrs in Harlem. Dennis is helping to develop and acting in Tyson vs. Ali under the direction of Reid Farrington. He isan MFA Playwriting candidate at Brooklyn College.
KIM DAVIES: Kim Davies is a recent graduate of Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney's MFA
program in playwriting at Brooklyn College. Her short play THE LOVE OF RICHARD NIXON was
most recently featured in the 24 Hour Plays Festival at the Linda Gross Theatre. Her plays
have received readings and development opportunities from the Flea Theater, Partial Comfort
Productions, the Lark Play Development Center, and other organizations.
AMINA HENRY: Amina Henry is a playwright and teaching artist based in NYC. Her work has been produced and/or developed by: Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Brooklyn College, The Cell: a 21st Century Salon, Drama of Works, HERO Theater, The Brick, and the Hive Theater, among others. She was a 2012-2013 Core Apprentice playwright at The Playwrights Center and was a 2013 Finalist for the Leah Ryan FEWW Playwriting Prize for her play Bully. Upcoming productions include An American Family Takes A Lover at Theater for a New City in November 2013, and Happily Ever at Brooklyn College in May 2014. www.aminahenry.wordpress.com.
DIRECTORS (BIOS)
CHRISTOPHER BURRIS: Christopher Burris: Recent credits include Samuel D. Hunter's GEESE for TBTB, which was performed on The Kennedy Center's Millinium Stage and The Clurman Theatre on Theatre Row. At Horse Trade, he directed LEGENDARY: A MANTASIA for the MiniFridge Festival, and has been a director for The Fire This Time Festival for four years (WIRHIN UNTAINTED WOMBS, CRISIS OF THE NEGRO INTELLECTUAL, EXODUS, and BY THE BANKS OF THE NILE). Other New York credits include Kevin R. Free's A RAISIN IN THE SALAD: BLACK PLAYS FOR WHITE PEOPLE, which was a FringeNYC 2010 hit, as well as THE MUD IS THICKER IN MISSISSIPPI by Dennis A. Allen II, a winner in the 2010 Samuel French Of fOff Broadway Short Play Festival. He has directed several short plays for Sticky at the Bowery Poetry Club, including FALLING OUT WITH GREGARIAN TUNKS, LIFE'S TERMS, ...IN WHICH BISHOP EDDIE LONG LOSES HIS BATTLE WITH THE DEMONS, and GAGA OF THE DEAD. He holds a BA from UNC Chapel Hill, and an MFA from UC San Diego. @misterburris
BENJAMIN KAMINE: is a stage director and designer based in Manhattan. He recently directed the world premieres of a cautionary tailby christopher oscar pena ("brilliantly directed" --New York Times) andJobby Thomas Bradshaw(Timeout Critics' Pick, "a jolting treat" Ben Brantley,New York Times)both at The Flea Theater. Other directing credits includeMedea's Got Some Issuesby Emilio Williams (Best International Show 2012, United Solo Festival at TheaterRow),Why Me?by Leah Nanako Winkler (Asking for Trouble atEST),The Man Underby Paul Bomba (59E59), and an immersive audio theater piece with Tommy Smith called Nectarine EP. He is a resident director at The Flea Theater and at the Jewish Plays Project and is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. He has developed work with The New Group, The Flea Theater, EST/Youngblood, Barefoot Theatre Company, Primary Stages, the Jewish Plays Project and Brooklyn College, directing readings and workshops of plays by Bekah Brunstetter, Robert Askins, Nick Jones, Jonathan Caren, and Trish Harnetiaux, among others. He also works throughout New York as a sound, lighting, and projection designer.
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LocationEast 13th Street Theatre (View)
136 East 13th St
New York City, NY 10003
United States
Categories
| Minimum Age: 16 |
| Kid Friendly: No |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: No |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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