Writer/Performer Judith Sloan Recognized With a City Artists Corps Grant

Judith Sloan will present Songs, Poetry and Monologues of Migration, Refuge and Finding Home - at the Queens Theatre, as part of the City Artists Corps showcase on Saturday October 23 at 4 pm. The hour long program is free and takes place in the Claire Shulman Theatre at the Queens Theatre in Flushing Meadow Park, Queens, NY. Tickets are available at the door and in advance online TICKETS HERE

Judith Sloan is a writer, actor, audio artist and educator, whose work combines humor, pathos and a love of the absurd. For over twenty years, Sloan has been producing and presenting interdisciplinary works in audio and theater, portraying voices often ignored by the mass media. Known for her documentary project Crossing the BLVD, her solo show Yo Miss! which was produced by La MaMa E.T.C.

For the October 23 performance, Sloan will be joined by guest singers and a pianist who present songs from her play-in-progress "It Can Happen Here", which follows the lives of five women in Queens, New York who are bonded together through their neighborhood hair salon. The play is in development and was supported in part by an Artist Commissioning Grant from the Queens Council on the Arts and was developed in part through interviews and storytelling workshops with residents in Southeastern Queens who were grappling with race, gentrification and the impacts of climate change, and Covid19. Sloan will also be presenting a short piece from her collaborative work 1001 Voices: An Anthem for A New America with music written by Grammy winning composer, trumpeter and band leader Frank London. Guests include featured singers: Meah Pace, Melissa McMillan, Alba Ponce de Leon, Michelle Beth Herman, with Dominic Frigo on keyboards.

Sloan says, "This City Artist Corps funding has given me a great opportunity to write new songs and to hear them and share them with an audience in my home borough of Queens the most ethnically diverse locality in the United States and this work reflects that range of experience in the performers and the stories. I'm excited to have three singers who are also members of the Resistance Revival Chorus on board for this project." In addition to her own material Sloan has invited actor/playwright Najla Said as a guest artist in this event. Najla Said will perform an excerpt from her solo show "Palestine". Of Said's solo show the NY Times said: "There's something heroic about her broader stance: to a topic that generates fury and recrimination, she brings a lightness and a steadfast refusal to hate."

Over the course of three award cycles, more than 3,000 artists have received $5,000 in grant awards to engage the public with artist activities across New York City's five boroughs this summer and fall. Artists will use the grant to create new work or phase of a work, or restage preexisting creative activities across any discipline.

City Artist Corps Grants was launched in June 2021 by NYFA and DCLA with support from the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment (MOME) as well as Queens Theatre. The program is funded by the $25 million New York City Artist Corps recovery initiative announced by Mayor de Blasio and DCLA earlier this year. The grants are intended to support NYC-based working artists who have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19. It is strongly recommended that a portion of the grant be used to support artist fees, both for the applying artist and any other artist that are engaged to support the project.

This event has received additional support from EarSay, and the New York State Council on the Arts NYSCA Restart NY: Rapid Live Performance Grant with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.