SpeakEasy and Front Porch Will Sponsor a Free Panel On Restorative Justice

In conjunction with the New England premiere of the acclaimed drama Pass Over, SpeakEasy Stage Company and the Front Porch Arts Collective, Boston's only professional black-led theater company, are sponsoring a panel discussion on "Restorative Justice and Healing After Loss." The event will take place on Tuesday, January 7, from 6-8PM, at Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street in Boston. Admission is free but advance registration is requested.

Fill out this form to reserve your spot: https://forms.gle/XawcmgMyBWnPzeV69

Moderated by Pascale Florestal, Education Director for Front Porch, this panel will include conversations with mothers who lost a child to gun violence, as well as an artist working to use the arts to promote healing and awareness. The discussion will also explore ways to curb systemic violence against people of color and ways the community can come together and heal.

Scheduled to appear is Boston activist Ramona Jones, whose son Anthony Weeks was shot and killed outside her Brockton home when he was just 16. Ms. Jones donates her time to a number of related community organizations, including Legacy Lives On, the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, and Code Listen, speaking with young people about her son and sharing his story in the hope of preventing another mother from losing a child to violence.

Also joining the conversation will be Shaw Pong Liu, a violinist and composer, and the founder of Code Listen, which uses songwriting and performances to support healing and dialogue around violence, racism, and police practices.

The evening will also include a performance by members of the cast of Pass Over, and a reception to allow attendees to continue the conversation while enjoying refreshments.

Winner of the 2019 Lortel Award for Best Play, PASS OVER was written by Antoinette Nwandu, and tells the story of Moses and Kitch, two young Black men looking for ways to pass the time while hanging out on their local street corner. Crafting everyday profanity into poetic and humorous riffs, the friends share their dreams of deliverance, until an ominous stranger changes their world forever. Bold, thrilling, and breathtakingly theatrical, PASS OVER unflinchingly exposes the lives of generations of young Black men who dream of a promised land they have yet to find.

Content advisory: PASS OVER contains depictions of anti-Black racism, police harassment and brutality, gunshots, strong language, and frequent use of the n-word (both as an expression between two black friends and as a racial epithet used by a white person).

PASS OVER is the work of New York-based playwright Antoinette Nwandu, whose plays include Black Boy & the War (2011); Vanna White Must Die (2012); Flat Sam (2013); and Breach: a manifesto on race in America through the eyes of a black girl recovering from self-hate (2018). Ms. Nwandu is a MacDowell Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, and an Ars Nova Play Group alum. Honors include the 2018 Whiting Award, the 2017 Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and spots on the 2016 and 2017 Kilroys lists. She holds degrees from Harvard College, the University of Edinburgh, and New York University's Tisch School of the Arts.

The Boston cast features Boston actors Kadahj Bennett, Hubens "Bobby" Cius, and Lewis D. Wheeler, and was directed by Monica White Ndounou.

PASS OVER will play for four weeks, from January 3 - 25, 2020, in the Roberts Studio Theatre in the Stanford Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts, 527 Tremont Street, Boston.

Ticket prices start at $25, with discounts for students, seniors, and those age 25 and under. For tickets or more information, the public is invited to call BostonTheatreScene Audience Services at 617.933.8600 or visit www.SpeakEasyStage.com.

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