Theatre 167 Wins Caffe Cino Award

Theatre 167 is the recipient of the New York Innovative Theatre Foundation's 2015 Caffe Cino Fellowship Award, presented to a company "that consistently produces outstanding work." Theatre 167 previously received the 2014 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Premiere Production for its world premiere of Pirira.

For the first time in the history of the Cino Award, the fellowship comes with one-year stewardship of a signet ring found by Lanford Wilson, given to Joe Cino, and later passed down to other leaders of the independent theatre movement.

The Caffe Cino Fellowship will support Theatre 167's upcoming world premiere production of Mourning Sun by Antu Yacob, directed by Ari Laura Kreith, at the West End Theatre, 263 W. 86th St., November 6-December 6.

Set in Ethiopia and New York, Mourning Sun is a remarkable love story that spans continents and cultures. At 14, Biftu and Abdi listen to American pop music and fantasize about meeting Michael Jackson. Then Biftu is forced into an arranged marriage, and her dreams and her body are shattered. This explosive new play sheds light on brutal traditions impacting girls and women across the world and explores the ways our lives are shaped by trauma and recovery, dislocation and identity, and the power of human connection.

Playwright Yacob was born in Ethiopia and raised in the United States. After her sister, a physician, volunteered at the fistula clinic in Addis Ababa, Ms. Yacob began researching stories of child marriage. She wrote the play because she "wanted the voices of those girls and women to be heard."

Tickets are $18/$16 and can be purchased online at www.theatre167.org or at https://www.artful.ly/theatre-167 or by calling (646) 568-5167. For more information, visit theatre167.org, follow on Twitter @Theatre167 or on instagram @theatre167, and find them on Facebook at Facebook.com/Theatre167.

The production team includes Bo Frazier (Stage Manager), Jen Price Fick (Set Design), Matthew Fick (Lighting Design), and Jessa-Raye Court (Costume Design).

Theatre 167 is a multilingual, multicultural ensemble dedicated to creating imaginative, deeply collaborative plays that investigate cultural complexities. Named for the 167 languages spoken in the world's most culturally diverse neighborhood, Theatre 167 experiments with form and process to develop productions that celebrate a multitude of voices, explore our essential humanity, and build bridges between our diverse communities.

The company created and produced The Jackson Heights Trilogy-167 Tongues, You Are Now the Owner of This Suitcase, and Jackson Heights 3AM - three full-length, collaboratively authored multi-writer plays featuring 93 characters speaking 14 languages, performed individually at 4 venues in Queens, as a six-hour epic in Manhattan, and re-imagined as an immersive installation at Queens Museum. Other Jackson Heights-inspired projects include I Like To Be Here: Jackson Heights Revisited, or, This Is A Mango at the New Ohio and several short pieces for Queens Theatre's World's Fair Play Festival, a NY Times Critic's Pick.

Now in its 5th season, Theatre 167 is currently in residence at Manhattan's West End Theatre housed in The Church Of St Paul and St Andrew, which inspired their recent production, The Church Of Why Not, for which they received the Randall Wreghitt New Producer Endowment Award.

Mourning Sun plays the following schedule until December 6, skipping Thanksgiving weekend: Thursdays at 7pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, Sundays at 7pm.