THE NEW BLACK FEST Comes to The Lark Next Month

The New Black Fest, a theater organization celebrating provocative storytelling, music and discussion from the African Diaspora, is proud to announce The New Black Fest at The Lark.

This year's featured artists and works include PAPER ARMOR by Obie Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Eisa Davis; the award-winning ASHES UNDER GAIT CITY by Christina Anderson; SCHWARTZ GERMACHT OR KLAUS FINDS HIS BLACKNESS by Alexander Thomas; BARS AND MEASURES by Idris Goodwin; AMERICA'S FAVORITE PASTIME (formerly known as NIGGER FETISH) by the 2015 Atlantic Theater LAUNCH Commission recipient Dennis A. Allen II; and RIVER SEE/THEATRICAL JAZZ & AESTHETIC SCHOLARSHIP presented by Sharon Bridgforth and Omi Osun Joni L. Jones.

Public readings of these works and a kick-off panel "New Topics in Blackness (the NEW Civil Rights)" will take place March 16 - March 22 at The Lark's BareBones Studio. The panel event, moderated by playwright Zakiyyah Alexander, will involve political activist and writer Kevin Powell; journalist and political analyst Keli Goff; the 2014 winner of the Edward M. Kennedy Prize playwright Dominique Morisseau; and public intellectual and NYU professor Frank Leon Roberts.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and The New Black Fest's advisory board member Lynn Nottage told The New York Times, "This [event] is not about separation, it's about inclusion. It's about inviting people who don't get access."

The New Black Fest is proud to be in residency at The Lark this year as its mission to place artists in leadership roles to guide their own creative processes and to create a space for public conversation, debate, and community engagement aligns with the goals of the festival.

The New Black Fest is supported in part by Time Warner and a special grant from the Ford Foundation.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS:

Monday, March 16 @7pm - "New Topics in Blackness (the NEW Civil Rights)"
Join us for a moderated panel discussion with Kevin Powell, Keli Goff, Dominique Morisseau and Frank Leon Roberts. Reception to follow.

Tuesday, March 17 @7pm - RIVER SEE/THEATRICAL JAZZ & AESTHETIC SCHOLARSHIP by Sharon Bridgforth and Omi Osun Joni L. Jones
Through conversation, improvisational performance and scripted text, theatrical jazz artists Sharon Bridgforth and Omi Osun Joni L. Jones present RIVER SEE, THEATRICAL JAZZ & AESTHETIC SCHOLARSHIP, an exploration of theatrical jazz that considers how race, gender, and class play important roles in creating a form that speaks to social, artistic and sexual transgressions, and freedom of expression.

Wednesday, March 18 @7pm - PAPER ARMOR by Eisa Davis
In 1930, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston wrote a play together, MULE BONE, that promptly destroyed their friendship. In this piece of historically inspired speculative fiction, their stenographer, Louise Thompson Patterson, looks on from an afterworld where the future (and past) of black letters hang in the balance.

Thursday, March 19 @7pm - SCHWARTZ GEMACHT OR KLAUS FINDS HIS BLACKNESS by Alexander Thomas
Set in 1938, Berlin. Drawing on research on the lives of Afrodeutscher (Afro-Germans), the play imagines a story that examines questions of self and citizenship through the eyes of a patriotic Afrodeutscher actor. Proud to serve his country, he appears in propaganda films calling for the return of Germany's former African colonies. An encounter with an African- American musician and activist leads to questions about identity and the treatment of people of color both in Germany and in the United States.

Friday, March 20 @7pm - AMERICA'S FAVORITE PASTIME by Dennis A. Allen II
Emmanuel Prince is a black civil rights activist, a well-known pundit; he has multiple books on the Times best-sellers list; is a US ambassador; is married to beautiful woman and has a son about to graduate college as salutatorian. Emmanuel Prince also has a secret sexual addiction that could destroy his family and career. AMERICA'S FAVORITE PASTIME (formally known as NIGGER FETISH) explores race, identity, fetishes and the shame that keeps us addicted to a cycle of pain.

Saturday, March 21@7pm - BARS AND MEASURES by Idris Goodwin
Loosely based on real events, BARS AND MEASURES is the fascinating tale of two brothers. One a classical pianist; the other a jazz bassist. One a Christian; the other a Muslim. One living in freedom; the other in jail. Separated by bars, the brothers try to reconcile their differences through the language they know best. Music. A journey through faith, family, melody and time. BARS AND MEASURES was commissioned by B Street Theatre in Sacramento.

Sunday, March 22 @3pm - ASHES UNDER GAIT CITY by Christina Anderson
Simone The Believer, a popular online guru, decides to leave the virtual and enter the real when she discovers Gait City, Oregon's complicated history of displacing its Black residents. She sets out to reclaim the city as a "Black mecca." She and her assistant D settle in Gait City, then the mission takes an unexpected turn. When her online call to join a real world community goes unanswered, Simone must decide what she's willing to do to ignite movement in the age of "hashtag" activism.

Talkbacks will follow each reading. A reception will follow the panel and the final reading on March 22. All events are free and open to the public; reservations are required. Reservations can be made starting Monday, February 16. Visit www.thenewblackfest.org for more information.

The New Black Fest is a theater organization committed to celebrating insurgent voices within the diverse African Diaspora through theater, music and discussion. The New Black Fest is a gathering of artists, thinkers, activists and audiences who are dedicated to stretching, interrogating and uplifting the Black aesthetic in the 21st century. The New Black Fest has developed many artists including Lynn Nottage, Mfoniso Udofia, Glenn Gordon, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Radha Blank and more. It has partnered with 651 ARTS, the BRIC Arts/Media/Brooklyn, the Classical Theatre of Harlem and more. It also co- founded the American Slavery Project as well as commissioned Facing Our Truth: 10-Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege as well as HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments.

KEITH JOSEF ADKINS (ARTISTIC DIRECTOR) As a playwright, his plays include Pitbulls which received its world premiere at Rattlestick Theater, NYC, in Fall 2014, Safe House which received its world premiere Fall 2014 at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park and a recent production at Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (Winter 2015). His play The Last Saint on Sugar Hill received its world premiere at MPAACT Theater in Chicago, garnering a Best New York nomination at the 2012 Jeff Awards. The Last Saint received its New York City premiere in 2013 at Dr. Barbara Ann Teer's National Black Theater in NYC under the direction of Seret Scott and earned six 2014 Audelco nominations. Other plays include The People Before The Park, Sugar and Needles, The Final Daze, among others. Keith's play The Disappointment recently premiered in both the United States and Cape Town, South Africa as part of Book Wings South Africa, a cross-continental theater collaboration to commerate the 25th Anniversary of Nelson Mandela's release from prison.

The Lark provides transformative support for playwrights. Founded in 1994, this laboratory for new voices and new ideas provides playwrights and their collaborators with resources to develop their work in a supportive yet rigorous environment and encourages them to define their own goals and creative process in pursuit of a unique vision. We embrace new and diverse perspectives here at home and in all corners of the world, supporting innovative strategies to help new work reach audiences through a network of evolving partnerships. We strive to reinvigorate the theater's ancient and enduring role as a public forum for discussion, debate and community engagement, and to strengthen society's capacity to imagine its future through storytelling.

In April 2012, The Lark opened a new 10,000 square foot custom-designed, play-creation studio in New York City's theater district. As part of its growth over the last few years, The Lark has created a portfolio of major playwriting fellowships that provide economic flexibility to writers at different stages of their careers including the PoNY Fellowship. Last year, The Lark served 1,243 artists, including 174 playwrights; partnered with over three dozen theaters and universities; welcomed 2,917 audience members to 40 public presentations, and in the last two years had 112 Lark-developed plays move on to 184 productions around the world. The Lark has supported numerous projects serving a diversity of communities, such as a touring residency program for Roma youth in Eastern Europe, an annual Me?xico/U.S. Playwright Exchange and, in partnership with Signature Theatre, a Contemporary Chinese Playwriting Series. Recent plays substantially developed at the Lark include David Henry Hwang's Chinglish, Kimber Lee's brownsville song (b-side for tray), Katori Hall's The Mountaintop and Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. The Lark is led by its co-founder and Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner and Managing Director Michael Robertson. For more information about The Lark, visit: www.larktheatre.org.

THE NEW BLACK FEST PARTICIPANTS (2015):

DENNIS A. ALLEN II was born and raised in Hempstead, New York. His play The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi was a winner at the 35thannual Off Off Broadway Samuel French festival in 2010 directed by Christopher Burris. Dennis is the recipient of Atlantic Theater Company's 2014-15 Launch Commission. He's been the recipient of the Himan Brown Creative Writing Award two years running, and has developed and produced plays with JACK, Liberation Theatre, National Black Theatre, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Harlem9′s 48 hours in Harlem, Fire This Time Festival and The Naked Expedition Project. Collaborative writing projects with The American Slavery Project's 2012 Unheard Voices, and The New Black Fest's Hands up: Six Playwrights, Six Testaments. Dennis received his MFA in playwriting from Mac Wellman and Erin Courtney's Brooklyn College program.

CHRISTINA ANDERSON's plays include pen/man/ship, Good Goods, Man in Love, BlackTop Sky, and Hollow Roots. Her work has appeared at Magic Theatre, CATF, Steppenwolf, Penumbra, Yale Rep, A.C.T., The Public Theater, Crowded Fire, and other theaters all over the country. Awards and honors include Playwright-in-Residence at Magic Theater (National New Play Network), two PONY nominations, two Susan Smith Blackburn nominations, finalist Laurents Hatcher Award, and finalist Woursell Prize. She's a resident member of New Dramatists. American Theatre Magazine selected Anderson as one of fifteen up-and-coming artists "whose work will be transforming America's stages for decades to come." She obtained her B.A. from Brown University and an M.F.A. from the Yale?School of Drama's Playwriting Program. She teaches playwriting at Purchase College. Anderson was born and raised in Kansas City, KS.

EISA DAVIS was the 2012 Alpert Award winner in Theatre and a 2013 Obie Award winner for Sustained Excellence in Performance. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama for her play Bulrusher, and wrote and starred in Angela's Mixtape, named a best of 2009 by The New Yorker. Other plays include Ramp (Ruby Prize winner), The History of Light (Barrymore nomination), Paper Armor, Umkovu, Six Minutes, Warriors Don't Cry, and the collaborations Active Ingredients and Hip Hop Anansi. Her newest piece is the musical work Flowers Are Sleeping, and she recently contributed a storyline to the collaborative marketplace event Trade Practices and an episode to The Mysteries at the Flea. Eisa was a resident playwright at New Dramatists, where she won the Helen Merrill Award, and the Whitfield Cook Award, among others. She has received fellowships from Sundance/UCross, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Doris Duke, Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. As an actor, recent theatre work includes Luck of the Irish at LCT3 (Lucille Lortel and AUDELCO nominations), the world premieres of The Call and This at Playwrights Horizons, the first revival of The Piano Lesson at Yale Rep (also composer and music director), and her Obie Award-winning performance in the Broadway rock musical Passing Strange, captured on film by Spike Lee. Eisa is featured in the films Free Angela, Welcome to the Rileys (opposite James Gandolfini) among many others. She plays Cynthia Driscoll on the upcoming Season 3 of House of Cards, was Bubbles' sister on The Wire, has guest starred on Gotham, The Blacklist, The Good Wife, Damages and Soul Food, and recurred on Smash and Hart of Dixie. As a singer-songwriter, music from her albums Something Else and Tinctures are available through iTunes and Soundcloud.

IDRIS GOODWIN is a playwright, rapper and essayist. His plays include How We Got On, Remix 38 (Actors Theater of Louisville); And in this corner: Cassius Clay (StageOne Family Theater), This is Modern Art (Steppenwolf), Blackademics (MPAACT, Crowded Fire). Goodwin is one of the six playwrights featured in Hands Up an anthology commissioned by The New Black Fest. Hands Up has been presented across the country at such notable venues as National Black Theater of Harlem, Seattle's Hansberry Project and Common Ground in North Carolina. His play The REALNESS is featured in the 2015 Ruth Easton Series with Playwright's Center where he is a Core Writer. He is the recipient of InterAct Theater's 20/20 Commission Award. Goodwin has been a writer in residence at Berkeley Rep's Ground Floor Program, The Kennedy Center and New Harmony Project. An accomplished spoken word artist, his critically acclaimed album BREAK BEAT POEMS was featured on The New York Times music blog and National Public Radio. Goodwin has performed in venues across the country and was featured on HBO, Sesame Street and Discovery Channel. He the author of the pushcart nominated essay collection THESE ARE THE BREAKS (Write Bloody, 2011). Idris teaches performance writing and Hip Hop aesthetics at Colorado College.

ALEXANDER THOMAS. Born in Albany, NY and married to a wife who works for the Foreign Service, Alexander has lived in London, Berlin and currently in Toronto. His solo play, Throw Pitchfork, premiered off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, regionally at Kitchen Theatre Company in Ithaca, and won a prize at the Monodrama Festival in Kiel, Germany. He co-wrote Black Stuff, a satiric look at black identity in America which performed at Highways Performance Space, National Black Theater Festival, The New York International Fringe Festival, and Kitchen Theatre Company. He is a contributing writer for The American Slavery Project: Unheard Voices, a theatrical event giving voice to the 419 slaves discovered in unmarked graves at the African Burial Grounds in New York. His play Schwarz Gemacht or Klaus Finds His Blackness was produced spring of 2014 at the English Theatre of Berlin in Berlin Germany. As an actor, he has works often at the Kitchen Theater in productions as diverse as Sunset Baby, Opus, Broke-ology, After Ashley and The Whipping Man. His international stage credits include the Edinburgh Festival and London`s West End (On The Waterfront), Luxembourg City (The Goat or Who is Sylvia?), Berlin, (Utopia/Dystopia).

SHARON BRIDGFORTH is a writer working in the theatrical jazz aesthetic. She collaborates with actors, dancers, singers and audiences live during performance as she composes moving soundscapes of her non-linear texts. A resident playwright at New Dramatists since 2009, Bridgforth is currently touring The River See Theatrical Jazz Performance Installation, with support from the MAP Fund, the National Performance Network and presenting partners in five states. Bridgforth has been Artist In-Residence at universities including: the University of Iowa's MFA Playwrights Program; The Theatre School at DePaul University; and The Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. Publications include love conjure/blues, Lambda Literary Award winning, the bull-jean stories, RedBone Press, and Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project, University of Texas Press, which she co-edited with Dr. Omi Osun Joni L. Jones, and Dr. Lisa Lynn Moore. Bridgforth's performance script, delta dandi is published in solo/black/woman, Northwestern University Press.

OMI OSUN JONI L. JONES is an artist/scholar and an Associate Professor in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Texas at Austin. Jones's scholarship focuses on performance ethnography, theatrical jazz, Yoruba-based aesthetics, Black Feminisms, and activist theatre. Her recent performances include sista docta, Falling (in Love and War), and Gathering Honey. She is a member of the Urban Future Network and Body Politic Think Tanks at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, and is co-editor with Lisa Moore and Sharon Bridgforth of Experiments in a Jazz Aesthetic: Art, Activism, Academia, and the Austin Project (University of Texas Press, 2010). Jones's forthcoming collaborative ethnography, Theatrical Jazz: Performance, Ase, and the Power of the Present Moment (Ohio State University Press), will be available in the spring of 2015.

KELI GOFF (PANELIST) is an internationally recognized multi-platform journalist and fiction writer best known for documenting the intersections of politics, pop culture, race and gender in America. As a journalist her work has appeared in some of the world's leading publications, including the magazines Time, Cosmopolitan and Essence, and the web editions of The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic and New York Magazine. Currently a Columnist for The Daily Beast, Keli previously served as a Contributor to The Washington Post blog "She the People," The Huffington Post and the online magazine The Root. Keli's columns have sparked national conversations in a variety of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and NBC's "Meet the Press." She has appeared on more than 100 television and radio programs providing political analysis and cultural criticism on the networks CBS, MSNBC, NPR, FOX, BET, the BBC and many others. In 2014 she began writing for theater and television. She recently joined the writing staff of the critically acclaimed drama series "Being Mary Jane." A recipient of the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group Fellowship, from 2014-2016 Keli will work closely with nine other playwrights on developing new material. The author of two books, her first, Party Crashing: How the Hip Hop Generation Declared Political Independence (Basic Books, March 2008) featured interviews with young voters and high profile leaders, including former Secretary of State Colin Powell and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons. The Washington Post called Party Crashing "engaging" while Arianna Huffington declared that it "Should be on the nightstand of candidates on either side of the political aisle." Her second book, the political novel The GQ Candidate (Atria Books, 2011), was designated a recommended summer selection by The Los Angeles Times and More Magazine. Keli's books have generated extensive coverage in outlets such as Vanity Fair and USA Today. She was also profiled in the book "No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How we Think about Power," by bestselling author Gloria Feldt. Keli is also featured as one of the "expert bloggers" in the book "The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging". A member of the National Association of Black Journalists, Keli holds a B.A. from New York University and a Master's degree in Strategic Communications from Columbia University. Born and raised in Texas, Keli now splits her time between Manhattan and Los Angeles. Follow Keli on twitter @keligoff

DOMINIQUE MORISSEAU (PANELIST), writer and actress, is an alumnus of the Public Theater Emerging Writer's Group, the Women's Project Playwrights Lab, and Lark Playwrights' Workshop. Among her playwriting credits are: Detroit '67 (Public Theater; Classical Theatre of Harlem/NBT; Northlight Theatre), Sunset Baby (Labyrinth Theater Co - NYC; Gate Theater- London), and Follow Me To Nellie's (O'Neill; Premiere Stages). Her produced one-acts include: Third Grade (Fire This Time Festival); Black at Michigan (Cherry Lane); Socks, Roses Are Played Out and Love and Nappiness (Center Stage; ATH); love.lies.liberation (The NewGroup), Bumrush (Hip Hop Theater Festival) and The Masterpiece (Harlem9/HSA). Dominique is currently developing a 3-play cycle on her hometown of Detroit, entitled "The Detroit Projects." Detroit '67 is the first of the series. The second play, Paradise Blue, was developed with Voice and Vision, the Hansberry Project at ACT, New York Theatre Workshop, McCarter Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Public Theater. Dominique's work has also been published in NY Times bestseller "Chicken Soup for the African American Soul" and in the Harlem-based literary journal "Signifyin' Harlem." She is the 2014 Kennedy Prize winner, a Jane Chambers Playwriting Award honoree, a two-time NAACP Image Award recipient, a runner-up for the Princess Grace Award, a recipient of the Elizabeth George commission from South Coast Rep, a commendation honoree for the Primus Prize by the American Theatre Critics Association, winner of the Barrie and Bernice Stavis Playwriting Award, the Weissberger Award for Playwriting, the U of M - Detroit Center Emerging Leader Award, and a Lark/PoNY (Playwrights of New York) Fellow. She is an artist that believes wholeheartedly in the power and strength of community.

KEVIN POWELL (PANELIST) is one of the most acclaimed political, cultural, literary and hip-hop voices in America today. Kevin is a native of Jersey City, raised by a single mother in extreme poverty, but managed to study at Rutgers University in New Brunswick thanks to New Jersey's Educational Opportunity Fund. Kevin has gone on to be the author of 11 books, including Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and the Ghost of Dr. King: Blogs and Essays. Among his upcoming books is his memoir of a very difficult childhood and youth, to be released in 2015 by Simon & Schuster. In 2016, he will publish a biography of Tupac Shakur, the late rapper and controversial American icon. Kevin's writings have also appeared in CNN.com, Esquire, Ebony, The Huffington Post, The Washington Post, Rolling Stone, The Guardian, ESPN.com and Vibe Magazine, where he worked for many years as a senior writer, interviewing such diverse public figures as Tupac Shakur and General Colin Powell. Kevin routinely appears in interviews on television, radio, and in print and on the internet discussing major issues of our time. As an activist, he is the president and co- founder of BK Nation, a new national, progressive, multicultural organization focused on such issues as education, civic engagement, leadership training, health and wellness, social media, arts and culture, and job and small business creation. Kevin was also a Democratic candidate for Congress in Brooklyn, New York, his adopted hometown, in 2008 and 2010. Kevin routinely travels nationally and globally as a public speaker, at colleges and corporations, at various institutions, and a wide range of communities. Recent speaking engagements include stops at Microsoft headquarters, Stanford University, the U.S. Department of Justice, the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the "March on Washington," a one-week residency at the American University in Nigeria, visiting lecturer positions at Central State University and Virginia State University and as Hip-hop Scholar-in-Residence at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. On behalf of the U.S. State Department, he toured Japan lecturing on the relevance of Dr. King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech in the 21st century. Kevin also visited Wales in the United Kingdom for a series of lectures and workshops on the 100th birthday of 20th century poet Dylan Thomas, and the connections between Welsh and American poetry and spoken-word traditions. As a result, he was named the International Ambassador for the Dylan Thomas Centennial in America for 2014. As a pop culture curator, Kevin produced the first exhibit on the history of hip-hop in America at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, which toured America and overseas. As a humanitarian, Kevin's work includes local, national and international initiatives to end violence against women and girls (including a very well-regarded appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show highlighting domestic violence); and he has done extensive philanthropic and relief work, ranging from Hurricane Katrina to earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, to Superstorm Sandy in New York, to his annual holiday party and clothing drive for the homeless every December since 9/11.

FRANK LEON ROBERTS (PANELIST) is currently on the Visiting Faculty of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study where he teaches courses on race, ethnicity, and American cultural politics. He has previously taught at Hunter College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, The New School, and the W.E.B. DuBois Scholars Institute at Princeton University. Educated at New York University and Yale University, his early upbringing in inner city New York as the son of an incarcerated father and single mother on welfare helped radically shape his political commitment to disenfranchised black and brown communities. A dynamic speaker and jazz-inspired public intellectual, he now travels internationally---lecturing on topics related to what he calls the "malfunctions of American democracy" (from poverty and the prison industrial complex to police brutality and anti-black racism in the age of the Obama Presidency). His recent activist work in Ferguson and with the Black Lives Matter movement in New York City has been profiled on CNN, The London Times, and a multitude of media outlets. The co- founder of the National Black Justice Coalition, he has recently given in lectures in Scotland, France, and England---and is at work on a global tour to commence in 2015. A frequent contributor to The Huffington Post, he has written for Vibe Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice, The Daily Voice, Uptown Magazine and many other media outlets. As a scholar and critic, Roberts' work has been the recipient of several high profile awards including the Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowship of the National Academies and the MARBL Fellowship at Emory University. Prior to graduate school, he was as the research assistant to legendary civil rights attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. (where he assisted Cochran in research related to the African American reparations movement). Frank is an active member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.