En Garde Arts Will Host Playdate Fest, a New Outdoor Performance Series

En Garde Arts in association with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership will present the premiere of playdate Fest!, a brand new outdoor free performance showcase at Downtown Brooklyn's new park, Abolitionist Place.

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Performing in playdate Fest! will be En Garde Arts veterans David Greenspan, Baba Israel who will also serve as host, Samora la Perdida, Kuhoo Verma and Eisa Davis who will all be presenting excerpts of new music and theatre pieces.

Downtown legend and 6 times OBIE winner David Greenspan, who performed on the stoop of a Brooklyn brownstone with En Garde Arts, returns to tell stories from his experience with "Macbeth in Cleveland" where the mishaps of the well-intentioned turn comical when looked back upon.

Baba Israel performed in En Garde Arts Downtown Live series at an outdoor plaza in downtown Manhattan in 2021. Well-known for his immersive, and participatory music-making, he will both host and perform excerpts of his own material.

Kuhoo Verma, a composer and performer, also performed in En Garde Arts Downtown Live series inside a loading dock. She will be performing original music that is born out of her innate desire to connect with everything-even things that can not talk back. We will hear the psychosis of solitude and a yearning for intimacy in these melodies.

Samora La Perdida will be performing material from her new musical Spanglish Sh!t, co-composed by Joshua Handelman, Morey Lola Irizarry and Matthew Zweibel. Spanglish Sh!t has been in development with En Garde Arts through our Uncommon Voices Program and will receive a workshop at the Baryshnikov Arts Center this coming November. Her new material has never been heard before by the general public.

Eisa Davis is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of Bulrusher, Angela's Mixtape, Mushroom, and many other stage works. Other favorite projects include Afrofemononomy, The Essentialisn't, Kindred, Passing Strange. She's made two albums and is writing a couple of musicals. Abolition runs in her blood.

Artistic Director Anne Hamburger says, "We are delighted to embark upon this new relationship with the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Their support of this program is enabling us to bring our work to the general public and to introduce new audiences to the work of these talented artists." playdate Fest! emerged from our series that began in the backyard of a Brooklyn brownstone for early career artists that we present once a month during the summers."

"We are so excited to host the first artistic performance at our newly opened public space, Abolitionist Place," said Regina Myer, president of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. "Since the park's opening in early May, the space has become a favorite relaxation and recreation spot for Downton Brooklyn residents, workers, students, and visitors, and En Garde Arts's playdate Fest! will mark its debut as a performance venue."

BIOS

David Greenspan has appeared in his plays Dead Mother, She Stoops to Comedy, Go Back to Where You Are, I'm Looking for Helen Twelvetrees, The Memory Motel, The Argument, The Myopia, performed solo renditions of The Patsy, Strange Interlude, Four Saints in Three Acts, worked with many contemporary playwrights, and has received six OBIES.

Baba Israel is a Hip Hop/theater artist, poet, educator and curator raised in New York by parents who were core members of the Living Theatre. He has toured and developed projects in thirty four countries, often working as a cultural ambassador. Baba is part of Bronx Banda with Arturo O'Farrill and has shared the stage with artists such as KRS ONE, Lester Bowie, Outkast, Bahamadia and Medusa. He is a core member of Hip Hop/Soul project Soul Inscribed who recently completed the American Music Abroad program and released their second album Tune Up on Tokyo Dawn Records. He co-created Cannabis! A viper vaudeville produced by HERE and premiered at La MaMa. He holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from Goddard College where he studied with Daniel Alexander Jones and is the Artistic Director of the Performance Project based at the University Settlement.

Samora la Perdida (she/they) starred in the Off-Broadway productions of Soho Rep's Notes on Killing..., Quiara Alegría Hudes' My Broken Language at Signature Theatre, as well as Tina Landau's A Transparent Musical at the Mark Taper Forum in 2023. Her TEDxTalk, "Finding Your Lost Mother Tongue", features music from her bilingual brujería musical: Spanglish Sh!t, which has been developed with Berkeley Rep, NYSCA, Baryshnikov Arts Center and En Garde Arts.

Kuhoo Verma is a New Delhi-born, NYC-based artist who revels in works made for diverse audiences. She previously starred in Dave Malloy's Octet at Signature Theatre (Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, Drama Desk Award). You can see her as the lead actor of Hulu's film Plan B, a film about reproductive rights in the United States. Other film: Murder Mystery 2 (Netflix), The Big Sick (Amazon), and the upcoming Space Cadet (Amazon). For the past decade, as an actor and musician, she has also workshopped new musicals and operas, and she has worked closely with renowned composers and writers.

Eisa Davis is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. She is the author of Bulrusher, Angela's Mixtape, Mushroom, and many other stage works. Other favorite projects include Afrofemononomy, The Essentialisn't, Kindred, Passing Strange. She's made two albums and is writing a couple of musicals. Abolition runs in her blood.

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