The Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop to Present BARS, OR HOW HIP HOP SAVED MY LIFE

The Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop's 2024/25 season will continue with an exciting new play reading of BARS, OR HOW HIP HOP SAVED MY LIFE by Germaine Shames. This reading is being presented in partnership with the Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, NY, and Zoomcatchers.us.

The reading will take place on Sunday, December 22, 2024 at 1:00 PM PST / 4:00 PM EST. Zoom Registration Link: https://bit.ly/howhiphopsavedmylife.

When an underpaid Jewish World Lit professor in the throes of a midlife crisis lands a gig ghostwriting lyrics for a young Black hip-hop producer, racial and sexual tensions collide. In the gritty, vibrant culture of American hip-hop, an unlikely pair of strivers brave the minefield of Black-White confrontation to capitalize on the one bankable commodity they've got: words. Will their collaboration succeed or end up one more casualty of a system that values myth over truth? Can music bridge the social barriers of race and class? Can friendship?

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:

GERMAINE SHAMES is a Dramatists Guild Foundation Nat'l Fellow, Kilroys List playwright, and recipient of her state's Literary Fellowship in Fiction. and is the author of the award-winning novels Between Two Deserts and You, Fascinating You. Writing under the pen name Casper Silk (Hotel Noir, Echo Year), she has been compared to F. Scott Fitzgerald, Graham Greene, and P.D. James "on steroids." As a playwright, Shames has celebrated premieres across the U.S. as well as abroad and been recognized in a number of festivals, including LTA Annual Playwriting Competition 2025 (First Place), Women's Voices 2024, Fulton Theater's Stories of Diversity 2023, Pegasus Theater's Fresh Reads 2023 (First Place), Page to Stage 2023, ThinkTank TYA's inaugural Playwrights Festival, Cimientos 2019, and Festival of New American Theatre 2018.