THE GREAT PRIVATION U.S. Premiere Adds Performance At SoHo Rep

Soho Rep has added an additional, final performance to its U.S. premiere production of Nia Akilah Robinson's The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar), directed by Evren Odcikin.

The Soho Rep production marks both Robinson and Odcikin's Off-Broadway debuts and is the U.S. premiere of Robinson's haunting and mordantly funny appraisal of the value of our bodies in death. The run of performances, in the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons, now concludes on March 27. Tickets can be purchased here. 

1832: a mother and daughter stand vigil behind the African Baptist Church in Philadelphia at the grave of a recently deceased loved one. Today, on the same grounds: another strangely familiar mother and daughter work as counselors at what is now a sleepaway camp. Timelines collide, horrors are buried and revealed, but love never lacks. 

The Great Privation (How to flip ten cents into a dollar) is a darkly comic play about our nation's long practice of harming Black bodies in the name of scientific progress, our responsibility to time, and the role joy plays in living with a history we cannot change.

Soho Rep's production brings together Tony-nominated actress Crystal Lucas-Perry (Broadway: 1776, Ain't No Mo'; Off-Broadway: A Sign of the Times, A Bright Room Called Day) and current Juilliard MFA student Clarissa Vickerie as both the 1830s Philadelphian and contemporary Harlemite mother and daughter pairs at the center of the play. Vickerie has in the past two years become a consistent collaborator of Robinson. Rounding out the cast are Holiday and Miles G. Jackson, who also play two parts across two different time periods. Holiday makes his Off-Broadway debut after recently graduating from the Geffen School of Drama at Yale, and plays the roles of Janitor and Cuffee; and Miles G. Jackson (Film: A Different Man, Problemista; Off-Broadway: Pay the Writer, Endlings) plays John and John. 

The creative team is Mariana Sanchez (Scenic Design), Kara Harmon (Costume Design), Marika Kent (Lighting Design), Tosin Olufolabi (Sound Design), Maxwell Bowman (Video Design and Programming), Cookie Jordan (Wig and Hair Design), Jackson Berkley (Props Supervisor), Arminda Thomas (Dramaturgy Consultant), Ann C. James (Sensitivity Specialist), Xavier Clark (Voice and Dialect Coach), Jaz Hall (Assistant Director), Mars Wolfe (Production Stage Manager), Sarah Matthews (Assistant Stage Manager), Kirrin Tubo (Production Assistant), and Lay Hoon Tan and Lauren Parrish (Production Managers). Casting is by Stephanie Yankwitt and Nia Smith of tbd casting co.

Robinson was born and raised in Harlem as was her mother, with her grandmother spending the majority of her life in Harlem and the Bronx. While set in Philadelphia, The Great Privation continues to deepen Robinson's engagement with her home as she unearths histories conjoining the worlds of present-day Harlemites, and their ancestors two centuries ago. Archival materials at Harlem's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture helped build the foundation of Robinson's inquiries, as well as a conversation with librarian Maira Liriano. The playwright was likewise inspired by researchers like Leslie M. Rankin-Hill, Gary B. Nash, and Harriet A. Washington, whose book Medical Apartheid Robinson first encountered at Revolution Books in Harlem. Robinson looked to Washington's writing and research “about why bodies are commodified after death,” to help create the world of 1832, as characters hover, with diametrically opposed motives, around one man's grave. Through all of her external research, the play often returns to lessons learned from her parents.

The Great Privation made its world premiere at Theatre 503 in London, where, in a five-star review, London Pub Theatres called it “a play that stops you in your tracks.” Director Evren Odcikin, a celebrated director and producer of new works around the country, helped develop Robinson's play at last year's Bay Area Playwrights Festival.