Brave New World Rep Moves Site Specific Production of DUTCH KINGS to Red Hook

Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre announced its first post-pandemic site-specific full production, the world premiere of Dutch Kings, a new play by Kristen I. Spencer. Co-producer for the play is artist/activist Gina Belafonte, executive director of Sankofa.org, the social justice organization founded by her father Harry Belafonte.

About DUTCH KINGS: Today is the Annual Block Shop Double Dutch Competition and the Dutch Kings title is up for whichever team has the BADDEST, lyrical jumpers on the block. What starts off as a fun competition becomes an unraveling of self-identity in a quickly changing neighborhood. What are young black boys to do when once holy ground is suddenly unsafe and uptownies have come to take over their block?

The play first came to the attention of BNW as a submission to their Brave New Works program and was selected as one of a short list performed as a Zoom reading earlier this year. Now Dutch Kings is set for a full site-specific production (August 15, 21, 28) outdoors with both cast and audience in the middle of Red Hook's wide Richards Street, with Coffey Park on the east side and a few modest homes and apartments on the west.

Brave New World's producing artistic director Claire Beckman says, "I loved Dutch Kings from page one! It's an extraordinary piece of writing. Our playwright Kristen I. Spencer who just received her MFA from Columbia, and our director Christopher D. Betts, a Taymor World Theatre Fellowship Recipient in his last year at the Yale School of Drama are already both rising stars. BNW is humbled to provide a platform for this important work. I'm grateful to our co-producer Sankofa.org led by my colleague Gina Belafonte and to the Mayor's Office 'Open Culture' initiative."

In talking about the play, playwright Kristen I. Spencer, says: "I wanted to write a piece that spoke to the scope of black masculinity and how their environment influences and affects the way they love on each other. I grew up listening to my dad with his life-long friends, watching how they joked, how they expressed their bothers and their joys, how they hurt and persevered through the decades. It occurred to me that their specific love language was rooted in duality. It was both joke and pain, both rhyme and tears, both anger and celebration. This is the heart of Dutch Kings. Like this love language, the entire piece is also structured in dualities. The characters in this piece are both tough and tender, they rap and they cry, they fight and they love, they double dutch and still feel cool."

Director Christopher D. Betts says they are looking forward to embracing Brooklyn in the site-specific production. "Richards Street, Red Hook, Brooklyn as our backdrop, the production will rely heavily on both the physical life of the actors and choreography, simulating the athletic event of double dutching through collaborations found during the rehearsal process."

The choreography in Dutch Kings "will capture the spirited competition of double dutch with dynamic skipping rhythmic patterns and body movement," says choreographer Sheila Anozier. "I'm excited to create movements that allow these characters the space to physically express their own internal rhythm with imagination and self-declaration. It's an expression of culture - a world within a world. These boys step into another world in the way that I do when I'm dancing."

Co-producer Belafonte says, "Sankofa.org is honored and excited to be co-producing the world premiere of Dutch Kings by Kristin I. Spencer in partnership with Brave New World Repertory Theatre. Repertory theater is hard to find these days and Brave New World Rep engages community by presenting works that deeply resonate the human condition."

DETAILS:

Brave New World Repertory Theatre in Association with Sankofa.org

Present

The World Premiere of

DUTCH KINGS

By Kristen I Spencer

Directed by Christopher D. Betts

DATES:

First preview: August 15 at 11am

Opening August 15 at 3pm

August 21 at 11am and 3pm

August 28 at 11 am and 3pm

PLACE:

Red Hook

Richards Street between Visitation Place +Pioneer Street

(F train to Smith and 9th, or B61 bus to Van Brunt + Pioneer)

TICKETS:

$25 general admission

$18 seniors and under 18

Get Tickets HERE

***Residents of the Red Hook Houses can watch FREE with

Proof of Address***

CAST:

Teri Brown*

Karl Green*

Anthony Holiday*

Travis Raeburn*

and

Kayodè Soyemi*

*member Actors Equity Association

CREATIVE TEAM:

Sound Design: Carsen Joenk

Choreography: Sheila Anozier+

Costume Design: Brittani Beresford+

Sound Engineer: Jim Petty

Production Stage Manager: KAIT MAHONEY*

Production Manager: Claire Beckman+

+ indicates member Brave New World Rep

Artwork by Taylor Morgan

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