New York Stage & Film Holds Sold Out Reading Of Donja R. Love's SOFT

New York Stage and Film has announced that Donja R. Love's soft will be the second installation in their NYC Reading Series at Barnard College, held on Monday, October 29th at 7:00pm at the Glicker-Milstein Theater at The Diana Center. Directed by Awoye Timpo, the cast of soft features Gabriel Diego Hernandez, Galen Ryan Kane, Obie and AUDELCO Award winner Russell G. Jones, Andy Lucien, Joshua E. Nelson, Cristina Pitter, Lortel Award nominee Namir Smallwood, Ryan Jamaal Swain, and James Udom.

In soft, Mr. Isaiah, a recent hire at a disciplinary boarding high school, is ready to make a difference in the lives of his six male students. When one of his boys commits suicide, he is plagued with the questions: Where do Black and Brown boys go when they die?; and what makes someone's struggle so unbearable that they'd take their own life? While seeking answers to this question, he sees the sorrows that each of his boys dances with - and is reminded of his own.

New York Stage and Film's NYC Programming serves artists through the course of the full calendar year, and throughout the life cycle of their projects. The NYC Reading Series at Barnard College features free public readings of work in progress every 6-8 weeks during the school year. In addition, New York Stage and Film's Winter Season offers workshops, readings, and residencies to several projects simultaneously, and presents them free to the general public.

The Winter Season begins February 2019. Additional details will be announced shortly.

Donja R. Love (Playwright) is an Afro-Queer playwright, poet, and filmmaker from Philadelphia. He's the recipient of the 2018 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award, the 2017 Princess Grace Playwriting Fellow, a Eugene O' Neill 2017/2018 National Playwrights Conference finalist, The Lark's 2016 Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellow, The Playwrights Realm's 2016-2017 Writing Fellow, the 2016 Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Award recipient, and the 2011 Philadelphia Adult Grand Slam Poetry Champion. His work has been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Atlantic Theater, Rising Circle Theatre, The Lark, and The Playwrights Realm. He's the co-founder of The Each-Other Project, an organization that helps build community and provide visibility, through art and advocacy, for LGBTQ People of Color. Select stage-plays include: a trilogy which explores Queer Love* during pivotal moments in Black History, The Love* Plays (Sugar in Our Wounds; Fireflies; In The Middle), and soft. Select film work: Modern Day Black Gay (web series), and Once A Star (short film). Training: Juilliard, Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program.

Awoye Timpo (Director). Credits include: The Homecoming Queen (Atlantic Theater), Skeleton Crew (Chester Theater), Sister Son/ji (Billie Holiday Theater0, Carnaval (National Black Theatre), Ndebele Funeral (59E59, South African tour, Edinburgh Festival); The Libation Bearers (Shakespeare Theatre of NJ), Araby (La MaMa), In the Continuum (Juilliard); Clybourne Park (Farmers Alley), The Vanished (Novisi). Producer: CLASSIX, a reading series exploring classic plays by Black playwrights. The inaugural season in 2017 featured works by Bill Gunn, Kathleen Collins, Ron Milner and Alice Childress. Broadway: Associate Director, Jitney; Assistant Director, Shuffle Along. Other: Associate Director, Othello (Shakespeare in the Park), ABC/Disney, Cherry Lane, Lincoln Center Directors Lab, Ma-Yi, New Dramatists, NOW Africa, Page 73, PEN World Voices, Rising Circle, Royal Shakespeare Company, Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab and WNYC. Upcoming: Paradise Blue by Dominique Morisseau (Long Wharf).

New York Stage and Film (Johanna Pfaelzer, Artistic Director; Thomas Pearson, Executive Director; Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer, Leslie Urdang, Producing Directors) is a not-for-profit company dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development of new works for theater and film. Since 1985, New York Stage and Film has played a significant role in the development of new plays, provided a home for a diverse group of artists free from critical and commercial pressures, and established itself as a vital cultural institution for residents of the Hudson Valley and the New York metropolitan region. www.newyorkstageandfilm.org

Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski