Playwrights From The Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program To Hold Public Readings

Liberation Theatre Company  will host four nights of public readings of plays written by writers who participated in LTC's Writing Residency Program for 2024-2025. The readings are the culmination of ten-months of work in which playwrights were required to complete a first draft of a full-length play.

"This is the seventh year of our program and the four writers who made up this year's cohort were particularly inventive and imaginative in the subject matter of their pieces," said Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Producing Artistic Director. "They've written plays rooted in science fiction, mysticism, psychological drama and media influences on racial identity. We never try to tell writers what to write but rather support them in achieving clarity in story and message."

"These are plays-in-progress and we invite the public to attend and listen with that in mind," she added. "There will be an opportunity for feedback and that will help the playwrights think about any changes they wish to make as they develop the plays further."

The readings will be held over four separate nights at The Mary Rodgers Room at The Dramatists Guild of America, 1501 Broadway, Suite 701, New York, NY 10036.

Admission is FREE however guests MUST RSVP ASAP or no later than 48 hours prior to the show they wish to see.This is mandatory due to new security procedures at the building's front desk. Please RSVP using this Google Doc: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeEPUz3ilf4gy4OJ27Bwkgyscbra7WytL4fBlOfeDDqoO2KVQ/viewform

The reading schedule:

DAY ONE - Sunday - March 9, 2025 - 7:00 p.m.

A Case For Killing Samba

Written by Cris Eli Blak

During her first week as a staff writer on a popular TV series, a young Black woman must decide whether to accept the potentially harmful portraits of African-Americans that Hollywood seems to have no problem pushing out or use her newfound position to play a small part in bringing more positive narratives and imagery to television screens. Meanwhile, those around her simply try to find their footing in an industry that never seems to see their worth.

DAY TWO - Tuesday - March 11, 2025 -- 7:00 p.m.

The Observer Effect

Written by Zachariah Ezer

In the near future, a time-travel technician and a public defender try to stop a murder case from unraveling all of reality.

DAY THREE - Saturday - March 15, 2025 - 7:00 p.m.

Don't Let Me Disappear

Written by Mya Ison

Robby is in his first semester at Harvard and now that the excitement has worn off, he's left feeling lost and lonely. In the absence of friends on campus, he's taken to spending long evenings talking with his only real companion, Dorothy Dean, the oft-forgotten Black 1960's socialite who was a member of Andy Warhol's "Factory". Dorothy is a roommate of sorts. She graduated from Radcliffe (Harvard's all-girls college) in 1952 and now she's found her way back to her alma-mater...by residing in Robby's dorm room. As Dorothy and Robby find common ground and form a painful yet important bond, Robby starts to blossom in new friendships and romances. Will Robby's bond with Dorothy survive as he finally comes into himself?

DAY FOUR - Monday - March 17, 2025 - 7:00 p.m.

Death and the Brokenhearted

Written by Abigail C. Onwunali

Loosely inspired by Wole Soyinka's Death and the King's Horseman, Death and the Brokenhearted tells the story of Obioma, a woman torn between duty and desire. Faced with the impossible choice of sacrificing her own heart to save her youngest daughter, Ifeoma, she longs to experience love with her own beating heart at least once. Meanwhile, her eldest daughter, Adaku, must navigate the weight of her mother's choices and their profound consequences.

Playwrights in the Writing Residency Program for 2024-2025 are:

Cris Eli Blak is the winner of the Black Broadway Men Playwriting Initiative, Charles M. Getchell New Play Award, Atlanta Shakespeare Company's Muse of Fire BIPOC Playwriting Festival, the recipient of the Emerging Playwrights Fellowship from The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre and is currently an artist-in-residence with Abingdon Theatre Company.

Zachariah Ezer is a Dramatists Guild Foundation Catalyst Fellow, the winner of Kumu Kahua Theatre's Hawai'i Prize, a member of The Civilians R&D group, and is currently under commission from Theater J. Plays: The Freedom Industry (Playwrights Horizons' New Works Lab, The Playwrights Center, New York Stage & Film. MFA: The University of Texas at Austin. BA: Wesleyan University.

Mya Ison (she/her) is an actor/playwright from North Carolina. Her plays are a relentless search for Black voices in the places where they've been erased: in the ordinary, in the future, and in the archive. Playwriting accolades: Laure (Workshopped at NYTW and The Tank NYC in 2023); 2023 Bay Area Playwrights' Festival Finalist, 2024 O'Neill New Playwrights' Conference Semi-Finalist.

Abigail C. Onwunali is a 2022 Princess Grace Award Winner. As a writer, her play, Jewel, was a Red Bull Theater's Short New Play Festival winner and her slam poems have been viewed worldwide. She received her MFA from the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and was an inaugural student for the Lena Waithe's Hillman Grad Mentorship Program.

The Harlem-based Liberation Theatre Company was founded in 2009 and is managed by Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, co-founder and Producing Artistic Director, Spencer Scott Barros, co-founder and Associate Artistic Director, and Bernard J. Tarver, Associate Producing Director.

LTC provides a creative home for early career Black playwrights to develop their work and express themselves artistically in a supportive, focused environment. Financial support for the Writing Residency Program is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Past members of the Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program since its inception in 2017: Shawn Nabors, Germaine Netzband, Liz Morgan, Nathaniel Blake Johnson, Deneen Reynolds-Knott, Maia Matsushita, Marcus Scott, Tylie Shider, Jessica Charles, Camille Darby, Johnny G. Lloyd, Jeremy O'Brian, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Karen Chilton, Malcolm Tariq, Travis Tate, Calley N. Anderson, Zakeia Tyson-Cross, Devon Kidd, Brysen Boyd, Anthony T. Goss, Rudy Bamenga, Olga El and Jerrica D. White.