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PS 122 Presents Thomas Bradshaw's 'Southern Promises'

By: Aug. 18, 2008
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Playwright provocateur Thomas Bradshaw ignites the stage yet again in one of his signature inflammatory satires.  Following sold out and controversial runs at Performance Space 122, including Prophet and Purity, and elsewhere, including Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist and Cleansed, Bradshaw teams with acclaimed director Jose Zayas (a/d Talk Radio) for an explosive new creation that is not for the faint of heart.
 
When the master of the plantation dies, he wills his slaves to be freed, but his wife doesn't think that good property should be squandered.  Pandemonium ensues.  The play pulls from the true stories of slave narratives from The Great Escapes including that of Henry Box Brown, a 19th century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists in a dry goods container.  Southern Promises provides a unique portrait of the old south.

Southern Promises is presented by Performance Space 122 in conjunction with The Immediate Theatre Company and Queens Theatre in the Park as part of B.O.B., PS 122's Best of Boroughs Program Commission.  B.O.B. is a program that unites artists and institutions from all five boroughs to create opportunities for diverse collaboration and audience development.  Southern Promises was developed in part through IRT Theater's artist-in-residence program.
 
The cast of Southern Promises is Lia Aprile, Jeff Biehl, Matt Huffman, Sadrina Johnson, Peter Mccabe, Derrick Sanders, Hugh Sinclair, and Erwin Thomas.

Thomas Bradshaw's play entitled Purity was produced at Performance Space 122 in January 2007 and his plays Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist and Cleansed were produced on a double bill at The Brick Theatre in February '07.  His plays Prophet, Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist, Cleansed, and Purity are all published by Samuel French, Inc.  Strom/Cleansed were nominated for Outstanding Original Full Length Script by the 2007 New York Innovative Theater Awards.  He has been featured as one of Time Out New York's ten playwrights to watch, as one of Paper Magazine's 2006 Beautiful People, and Best Provocative Playwright by the Village Voice in 2007.  His play entitled Prophet was presented at PS 122 in December 2005 and Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist won The American Theater Coop's 2005 National Playwriting Contest.  His was a fellow at New York Theater Workshop in 06-07' and is now a Usual Suspect.  Cleansed will also be published in Plays and Playwrights 2008.  He has been a member of Soho Rep's writer/Director lab as well as Lincoln Center's.  He performed in the premiere of Richard Maxwell's The End Of Reality at The Kitchen in January 2006 and he performed in Young Jean Lee's Pullman, WA at PS 122 in March 2005.  He performed throughout Europe with The End Of Reality in the fall of 06'.  He received his MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program and is a Professor at Brooklyn College and Medgar Evers College.  Thomas is also the recipient of a 2006 Jerome Foundation Grant. Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist was produced in Los Angeles in June 08' and Thomas's play Dawn will receive a workshop with New York Theater Workshop at Dartmouth College in August.  Dawn will also be translated into German and be presented at Theater Bielefeld in Germany in October.  His play Purity was published by Theaterheute in Germany in April and his play Dawn will be published by Theater Der Zeit in October.  He is currently working on an adaptation of The Book Of Job which has been commissioned by Soho Rep.  He is also Soho Rep's 2008-2009 Streslin Fellow.  He is also a Playwriting Fellow at The Lark Play Development Center.

Jose Zayas is the artistic director of The Immediate Theater Company.  Recent work includes: Okay by Taylor Mac,  Vengeance Can Wait by Yukiko Motoya (PS122), Again and Against by Betty Shamieh (The Lark), The Past Is Not a Foreign Country (Very) Personal Maps of Seattle by Mallery Avidon (Soho Rep), Nowhere on the Border by Carlos Lacamara (Repertorio Espanol, 5 ACE Awards), The Wasps by Ken Urban (Target Margin), Strom Thurmond is Not a Racist by Thomas Bradshaw (Brick Theater, 4 New York Innovative Theater Award Nominations) and Devil Land by Desi Moreno-Penson (Summer Play Festival).  He is the 2008 Marathon Literary Manager at Ensemble Studio Theater and was one of nytheatre.com's 2007 People of the Year.  Drama League Fellow, Lincoln Center Director's Lab, Phil Killian Fellowship, Soho Rep Writer/Director's Lab.  BA: Harvard University.  MFA: Carnegie Mellon University.

More about Performance Space 122

Performance Space 122 is New York's ultimate destination for cutting-edge theatre, dance, music, live art and cross-media.  Founded in 1979, Performance Space 122 is dedicated to supporting and presenting artists whose work challenges the traditional boundaries of dance, theatre, music, and performance.  Committed to exploring innovative form as well as material, PS 122 is steadfast in its search for pioneering artists from a diversity of cultures and points of view.

Southern Promises runs Saturday, September 6 - Saturday, September 27 on the following schedule:  Tuesday - Saturday at 8:30pm and Sunday - Monday at 7:00pm.  No performance on Monday, September 15.  Tickets: $18 each, $15 (students/seniors), $10 (P.S. 122 members).  Tickets may be purchased online at www.ps122.org or via phone at (212) 352-3101.  Performance Space 122 is located at 150 First Avenue at East 9th Street, New York, New York 10009.  www.ps122.org.







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