Kim Weild Directs AMERICAN MOOR at Boston Center for the Arts

Shakespeare, race, and America...not necessarily in that order, are explored as AUDELCO AWARD winning American Moor takes the stage at the Boston Center for the Arts' Plaza Theatre for a four-week engagement, July 19-August 12.

American Moor is directed by Drama Desk Award nominee Kim Weild, Founding Artistic Director of New York's celebrated Our Voices Theater, a company dedicated to diversity, inclusion and innovation. Most recently her critically acclaimed world-premiere production of Charles Mee's Soot and Spit was a New York Times Critic's Pick with Times critic Laura Collins-Hughes describing it as "a beautifully designed, dreamily evocative production."

American Moor, an 85-minute solo play written and performed by Keith Hamilton Cobb, examines the experience and perspective of black men in America through the metaphor of William Shakespeare's character, Othello. A black actor auditioning for the role of Othello, finds himself torn between wanting the role of a lifetime and having to engage an age-old process that invariably ends up with a black man on stage responding to white decision makers who presume to understand, and ultimately dictate, how a charismatic, intelligent, black man should behave in society.

American Moor was honored with an Audelco Award for the Outstanding Solo Performance and the script was inducted into the Permanent Collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, with Michael Witmore, Director of the Folger stating "Keith Hamilton Cobb's American Moor is incredible. It holds a mirror up to our contemporary culture... I have spent my life thinking about Shakespeare, but that did not prepare me for the depth of thinking and feeling that his performance provoked."

The offstage voice of the "Director" will be played by Matt Arnold, Production Stage Manager is Caleb Spivey, Lighting Design is by Tony Mulanix, and Assistant Director is Miranda Hayman. The engagement is a co-production of Boston's O.W.I. (Bureau of Theatre) and New York's Phoenix Theatre Ensemble.

American Moor plays July 19 through August 12 at The Plaza Theatre - Boston Center for the Arts. Performances are Wednesday and Thursday evenings at 7:30 pm, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00 pm, with matinees on Sundays at 2:00 pm.

A post-show discussion will follow the performance on the Thursday evenings and Sunday matinees from July 23 through August 10. Panel discussion participants will include Dr. Barbara Lewis, William Monroe Trotter Institute for the Study of Black History and Culture, University of Massachusetts; Rev Ziai Mtyora, Associate Minister, Jubilee Christian Church of Boston; and Dr. Robert Lubin, Professor of Theatre Arts, University of Massachusetts.

Tickets begin at $35.00, with discounts available for students and seniors, and for the preview performance on July 19. They can be purchased at www.bostontheatrescene.com, at the Boston Center for the Arts box office (539 Tremont St., Boston, MA), or by phone at 617-933-6600.

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