Soho Rep. Extends Aleshea Harris's IS GOD IS Through March 25
By: Julie Musbach Feb. 05, 2018
Soho Rep. presents
Is God Is (World Premiere)
By Aleshea Harris
Directed by Taibi Magar
February 6 - March 25, 2018
Previews: February 6-11 & 13-17 at 7:30pm; February 17 at 3pm
Opening: February 18 at 7:30pm
Regular Performances, Through March 11: Tuesday-Sunday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 3pm
Extension, Through March 25: Tuesday-Sunday at 7:30pm; Saturday at 3pm
Soho Rep. (46 Walker Street)
Tickets: February 6 - March 11: $35 general, $65 premium; March 13 - 25: $45 general; $85 premium
$0.99 Sundays: February 25, March 4 & 11 at 7:30pm
Purchase at sohorep.org or by calling 212.352.3101
In response to popular demand, Soho Rep. (Sarah Benson, Artistic Director; Cynthia Flowers, Executive Director) extends the world premiere of Aleshea Harris's Relentless Award-winning Is God Is, directed by Taibi Magar by two weeks, through March 25. In this play, which dauntlessly cracks jokes as it eviscerates, twin sisters Anaia (Alfie Fuller) and Racine (Dame-Jasmine Hughes) undertake a murderous journey from the Dirty South to the California desert, seeking payback for a horrendous act. Is God Is treats both morality and genre as notions to be exploded, drawing on the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, hip-hop and Afropunk in its subversion of theatrical constructs.
In a Sunday, February 4, article in the New York Times, Alexis Soloski describes Soho Rep. as a company that "not only favors works that toy with language and form... but it also takes on plays with difficult, risky ideas," and remarks that Is God Is "continues the company's commitment to handing over ample resources to early-career artists."
Aleshea Harris says of Is God Is, "Through this work, I sought to answer what I felt were compelling questions: What would happen if women who had been abused sought eye-for-an-eye justice for themselves and each other unapologetically? What if I wrote characters who spoke a language I spoke growing up (and still speak, depending), a language I've rarely experienced onstage, a language that eschews respectability politics, opting instead for gut-wrenching, unflinching honesty?"
Raised in Mississippi, and based in Los Angeles, Aleshea Harris performs her own solo work, in addition to being an acclaimed playwright, screenwriter and poet. Her multidisciplinary background has informed her proclivity for writing specifically for actors, creating disruptive, challenging and magnetic roles. Harris situates her work within an Afropunk ideology that explodes perceptions of how black people think, move, and sound; Is God Is explores and relishes the nuances of black Southern speech. In writing the play, she sought to place herself where culture has never allowed her to see herself. Here, she puts black women characters in the driver's seat of the alternately exhilarating and desolating Western genre. Anaia and Racine take the audience on a fast and merciless ride.
The cast of this world premiere production includes Teagle F. Bougere, Anthony Cason, Nehassaiu deGannes, Jessica Frances Dukes, Caleb Eberhardt, Alfie Fuller, Michael Genet, and Dame-Jasmine Hughes. The creative team is: Adam Rigg (set design), Montana Levi Blanco (costume design), Cookie Jordan (hair and wig design), Matthew Richards (lighting design), Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste (sound design), Samantha Shoffner (props design), J. David Brimmer (fight director), Danielle Teague-Daniels (production stage manager), and Genevieve Ortiz (assistant stage manager).
The premiere of this audacious work exemplifies the indispensable role of Soho Rep.: to provide a platform for artists to realize their boldest visions, in productions that are regularly among the most ambitious and acclaimed offerings of the theater season. Is God Is received the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award, presented in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Harris was also just named a finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. This engagement is the first New York production of one of Harris' plays. She joins a history of playwrights whose breakthrough productions have happened at Soho Rep., including César Alvarez, Alice Birch, Jackie Sibblies Drury, debbie tucker green, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Young Jean Lee, and Dan LeFranc.
Is God Is kicks off Soho Rep.'s triumphant return to the Lower Manhattan storefront it has called home for over 25 years. Soho Rep. Artistic Director Sarah Benson says, "I could not think of a more perfect play with which to welcome audiences back into our theater. When I was sent two of Aleshea's plays I began reading one of them late at night, and before I knew it I had stayed up for hours immersed in her work. I emailed her the very next morning to talk about making a production of Is God Is at Soho Rep. Aleshea's writing is a force. In Is God Is she has created nothing short of a new theatrical landscape populated by some of the most stunning roles for actors I've ever encountered. I cannot wait to share it with our audiences-especially under the direction of Taibi Magar, who I know will summon everything in her brilliant theatrical arsenal to bring this extraordinary play to the stage."
Performance Schedule and Ticketing
Performances of Is God Is will take place February 6 - March 25 (see schedule above) at Soho Rep., located at 46 Walker Street in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of February 14 for an official opening on Sunday, February 18 at 7:30pm. Admission tickets are $35 general/$65 premium from February 6 - March 11, and $45 general; $85 premium for March 13 - 25, and can be purchased by visiting sohorep.org or calling 212.352.3101. $30 general rush and $20 student rush (valid school ID) tickets are available at the box office 30 minutes prior to curtain for each performance, no advance sales. $0.99 Sunday tickets will be offered on February 25, March 4 & 11 at 7:30pm and are available first come, first served at the box office only.
About the Artists
Aleshea Harris is a playwright, performer and educator who received an MFA in Writing for Performance from California Institute of the Arts. Most recently, she was named the winner of the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 Relentless Award for Is God Is. Her work has been presented at the Costume Shop at American Conservatory Theater, Playfest at Orlando Shakespeare Theater, VOXfest at Dartmouth College, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Theatre @ Boston Court, L'École de la Comédie de Saint-Étienne, National Drama Center in France and in the 2015 anthology The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. Harris is under commission from Denver Center Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater and CalArts' Center for New Performance/La Comedie de Saint-Etiénne. She is a MacDowell Fellow and a Hedgebrook alum.
Taibi Magar is an Egyptian-American director based in New York, and a graduate of the Brown/Trinity MFA program. Most recently she directed the critically acclaimed Master at the Foundry Theatre (New York Times Critics Pick). Other recent projects include Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova, New York Times Critics Pick, OBIE Award for Best New American Work), Dry Powder (The Alley) and We Are Proud to Present...(The Guthrie).
In New York, Magar has directed and developed work for The Foundry, New York Theatre Workshop, Ars Nova, TFANA, the Women's Project Theatre, Rising Phoenix Rep and INTAR Theatre. She is the recipient of a Stephen Sondheim Fellowship, an Oregon Shakespeare Festival Fellowship, a Public Theater Shakespeare Fellowship and the TFANA Actors and Director Project Fellowship, and is an alumna of Lincoln Center Directors Lab. Most recently, she received the Kaplan Fellowship for young artists. She has directed and taught at many academic institutions, including Juilliard, Fordham University, Brown University and New York University.
Magar is currently developing Patrick and Daniel Lazour's We Live in Cairo (2016 Richard Rodgers Award) with New York Theatre Workshop. Upcoming projects include Familiar (The Guthrie and Seattle Repertory Theatre), Sense and Sensibility (Playmakers Rep) and Romeo and Juliet (Shakespeare Festival St. Louis).
About the Cast
Teagle F. Bougere (Man) Broadway: The Crucible, A Raisin In The Sun, The Tempest. Selected Off-Broadway Julius Caesar and Cymbeline along with eight other productions for the NYSF Public Theater; A Soldier's Play (Second Stage); A Fair Country (Lincoln Center Theater). Mr. Bougere created the role of Invisible Man in the world premiere stage adaptation of Ralph Ellison's novel. Selected Regional: One man show, An Iliad (Pittsburgh Public Theater); The Real Thing (Studio Theater. Washington D.C.) Joe Turner's Come And Gone and Blue Door, both directed by Delroy Lindo (Berkeley Repertory Theater). Selected Television: The Mist, The Path, Big C, Cosby, What The Deaf Man Heard, Seven episodes for the Law and Order franchise. Selected Film: Night At The Museum, Two Weeks Notice, The Pelican Brief.
Anthony Cason (Riley) NYC: Arden/Everywhere: The As You Like It Project (BPAC). Regional: A Midsummer Night's Dream, Love's Labour's Lost (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company). TV/Film: Law & Order: SVU, The Breaks. Thanks to his family and friends for their support, and to Taibi, Aleshea, and the Soho Rep. team for this incredible opportunity!
Nehassaiu deGannes (Angie) is delighted to be making her Off-B'way debut at Soho Rep! Off-Off B'way: Target Margin Theater (Abrons, JACK, Bushwick Starr,) Buran Theater, Theatre of The Two-Headed Calf, and readings with The Lark, New Georges, New Dramatists. Other NY/NJ: Marisol directed by Niegel Smith, Luna Stage; McCarter Theater's Every 28 Hours Plays directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian; EQUUS with Alec Baldwin directed by Tony Walton. Selected Regional: Shakespeare & Co. (Intimate Apparel, Or, *Berkshire Theater Award Outstanding Supporting Actress); Chicago Shakes (King Lear,) Underground Railway Theater (The Convert.) International: Stratford Festival of Canada (Romeo & Juliet, directed by Tim Carroll); Litmus Theatre/ Theatre Passe Muraille. Brown MFA & Trinity Rep Conservatory. Princeton Part-Time Faculty. 52nd St Project Volunteer. Up Next: "Arkadina" in The Assembly's Seagullmachine.
@NehassaiuActor
Jessica Frances Dukes (She) is excited to make her Soho Rep debut. Off-Broadway: Playwrights Horizons- Bootycandy (Obie Award); Regional: Ms. Dukes just finished playing Bessie/ Vera in Native Son at Yale Repertory Theatre. Other regional credits include; McCarter Theatre- Intimate Apparel; Actors Theatre of Louisville- Macbeth (Lady Macbeth); Arena Stage- King Hedley II, Vanya, Sonia, Masha, Spike; Centerstage- Detroit 67, Beneatha's Place, Clybourne Park; Detroit Public Theatre- Detroit 67; Arden Theatre- Stick Fly; Geva Theatre- A Raisin in the Sun, The Piano Lesson, Indiana Repertory- The Piano Lesson; Cleveland Playhouse- Trip to Bountiful; Ford's Theatre- Jitney; Woolly Mammoth Theatre (Company Member)- Bootycandy, The Vibrator Play, Eclipsed, Fever Dream, The Folger and more. TV/Film: NCIS New Orleans (CBS), The Good Wife (CBS), Bernard & Huey (Film). A Raisin in the Sun Revisited (PBS). MFA-The Catholic University of America www.jessicafrances-dukes.com/live
Caleb Eberhardt (Scotch) A proud native of San Francisco, CA, Caleb currently resides in Brooklyn. He is honored and thrilled to be making his Soho Rep. debut. Previous theatre credits include: Esai's Table (Cherry Lane Theatre), Choir Boy (ALLIANCE THEATRE/Geffen Playhouse), Hamlet (Theatre of War), Mother Courage and Her Children (Purchase Rep.) Select T.V./Film credits: Love Beats Rhymes (Lionsgate),The Deuce (HBO), The Defenders (Netflix),The Breaks (VH1), Roxanne Roxanne (IamOTHER) Training: B.F.A. from SUNY Purchase. Also a musician, follow along at facebook.com/rosehardtmusic
Michael Genet (Chuck Hall) Recently starred as Doctor Dillamond in the Broadway production of Wicked, and in Hamlet at The Old Globe Theatre. Broadway Credits: A Few Good Men, Hamlet, Lestat and Northeast Local. Off-Broadway: A Soldier's Play, Fences, All My Sons, Dance of the Holy Ghosts, The Whipping Man and Resurrection. Film/TV: One Fine Day, She Hate Me, 25th Hour, The Affair, The Mysteries of Laura, Ugly Betty, Taxi Brooklyn, The Following, Law & Order and Tyler Perry's House of Payne. Mr. Genet is the author of the critically acclaimed They Must Not Know Who I Think I Am: Lessons In Defiant Resilience, and winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing In A Motion Picture for the FOCUS Features release, Talk To Me.
Dame-Jasmine Hughes (Racine) is a graduate of The Piney Woods School, Tougaloo College (B.A.) and California Institute of the Arts (M.F.A). Hughes garnered a 2016 Ivey Award (Acting) and was nominated for Outstanding Performance by Female lead by The TBA Awards. Theater credits include Dot (Park Square Theater), Intimate Apparel (Ten Thousand Things), Hurt Village (Ubuntu Theater), Sunset Baby, Jitney, and Wedding Band dir. Lou Bellamy (Penumbra Theatre), Bright Half Life (Pillsbury House Theatre). She originated the role of Mercedes in Pussy Valley and appeared in An Octoroon (Mixed Blood Theater), Bus Stop (Rattlestick), Hoodoo Love (Mo'elelo Performing Arts-San Diego), For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide and Girls of Summer (Whitmore Lindley), Camino Real (Boston Court), King Hedley II and Day of Absence (dir. James Avery), Crackbaby, Late Bus to Mecca, I'm an Actor, They Don't Get It (Tre Stages-LA), and My Barbarians:PoLAAt (REDCAT-LA and the New Museum of Contemporary Art-NY). Film Credits: Katori Hall's directorial debut Arkabutla; Pleasure To Burn; Baby, No Lye; Time Killed; the Big Bang Theory; Stranded in Oblivion; ReTROGRADE; Celebrity Ghost Stories; Special Ed.
Alfie Fuller (Anaia) is thrilled to be making her debut at Soho Rep! NY Theatre: Yellow Card Red Card (New Ohio), Glass (JACK), Permitted (Kraine), Cowboy Mouth (Labyrinth), Antony & Cleopatra (Am. Theatre of Actors), As You Like It (New School). Regional: Picnic (ALLIANCE THEATRE). Film: Standing8 (Best Narrative Short at UrbanWorld Film Festival), Simoune (Portland & LA Film Festival). Training: Hampton University B.A., New School for Drama MFA program. Thanks to all the women (and dudes) who've supported me along the way. Life rocks.
About the Creative Team
Adam Rigg (Scenic & Video Design) is a Brooklyn based designer and artist originally from Southern California. New York: Actually (Williamstown Theater Festival/Manhattan Theatre Club), Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. (Soho Rep), O, Earth. (The Foundry Theatre), Demonstrating the Imaginary Body (Under The Radar @ The Public Theater), Living Here (The Foundry Theatre). Regional: Henry IV: Part 1 & 2 (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Invisible Hand (Westport Country Playhouse), Dear Elizabeth (Yale Repertory Theatre). Opera: Breaking the Waves (Opera Philadelphia/Prototype), An American Tragedy (Broad Stage), Pelleas (Cincinnati Opera). Upcoming: Familiar (The Guthrie/Seattle Rep), Water by the Spoonful (Mark Taper Forum), Proving Up (Opera Omaha). AWARDS: Princess Grace Award, Two time American Theatre Wing Henry Hewes Design nominee. Education: MFA, Yale School of Drama, BA, UCLA.
Montana Levi Blanco (Costume Design) Soho Rep Premiere. Off-Broadway: The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Lucille Lortel nomination) and In The Blood (Signature Theatre); Pipeline (Lincoln Center Theater); Ghost Light and War (Lincoln Center Theater/LCT3); Red Speedo and Nat Turner in Jerusalem (NYTW); He Brought Her Heart Back In a Box (TFANA), The Last Match (Roundabout Theatre Company); Hamlet, Teenage Dick, and Pretty Hunger (Public Theater); O, Earth (Foundry Theatre); and Orange Julius (Rattlestick). Regional credits include The Bluest Eye (Guthrie Theater), An Octoroon (Berkeley Rep), Measure for Measure (California Shakespeare Theater). Upcoming: Fairview (Soho Rep), Angels in America (Berkeley Rep), The House That Will Not Stand (NYTW), and Lempicka (Williamstown). Training: Yale School of Drama, MFA; Brown University, MA; Oberlin College, BA; Oberlin Conservatory of Music, BM. montanaleviblanco.com.
Cookie Jordan (Hair and Wig Design) Broadway: Once on This Island, Sunday in the Park with George, In Transit, Eclipsed, Side Show, After Midnight, Fela, A View From the Bridge, South Pacific. Off-Broadway: In The Blood, Everybody, The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theater), Marie and Rosetta, Midsummers Night Dream (Shakespeare in the Park). Tours: Fela (National tour), Fela (European Tour), Dirty Dancing, Flash Dance (National tour). Television:Emmy nominated for make up design for NBC, The Wiz Live.
Matthew Richards (Lighting Design) Broadway: Ann. Opera: Macbeth at L.A. Opera. Off-Broadway: Absolute Brightness..., and The Curvy Widow at Westside Arts; The Killer, Tamburlaine, and Measure For Measure at Theatre For a New Audience; The Atlantic; MCC; Playwrights Horizons; Play Co.; Primary Stages; Rattlestick; Second Stage. Regional: Actor's Theater of Louisville; Arena Stage; Baltimore's Center Stage; Cincinnati Playhouse; Cleveland Playhouse; Dallas Theater Center; Ford's Theatre; The Goodman; Hartford Stage; The Hangar; Hudson Valley Shakespeare; The Huntington; La Jolla Playhouse; Long Wharf; The Old Globe; Shakespeare Theatre; Westport Playhouse; Williamstown Theatre Festival; Yale Repertory Theatre. Graduate: University of Massachusetts, Yale School of Drama.
Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste (Sound Design) is a Bessie-nominated composer, designer and performer, based in Brooklyn, NY. Holding an MFA from Brooklyn College's Performance and Interactive Media program, his work complicates notions of industry, identity, and environment and the implications of the intersections of such phenomena. He is a founding member of performance collective, Wildcat!, and frequently collaborates with performers and fine artists, including Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Will Rawls, and Yanira Castro/a canary torsi. He has presented at the Brooklyn Museum, The Kitchen, Issue Project Room, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Newark Museum, Under The Radar at The Public Theater, The Studio Museum In Harlem, National Sawdust, The Jam Handy (Detroit), Tanz Im August at Hau3 (Berlin), American Realness at Abrons, Gibney Dance, FringeArts (Philadelphia), Judson Church, Stoa Cultural Center (Helsinki), MIT, Arts East New York, JACK, Painted Bride Art Center (Philadelphia), University Settlement, Harlem Stage, and also on Dazed Digital, Complex, and Boiler Room.
Samantha Shoffner (Props Design) Broadway: Time...Conways, The Price, Falsettos, China Doll, Noises Off, Living on Love (Associate). Props Artisan/Swing Coordinator: Fiddler..., An American In Paris (+tour), On Your Feet (+tour), The King and I, Realistic Joneses, Nice Work...Get It, Streetcar... Projections: The Mountaintop. West End: Hairspray (Maintenance). Off Broadway: Stuffed (West Side Theatre), Kid Victory (Vineyard) Alligator (New Georges), The End of Longing, Ride the Cyclone (MCC), Macbeth (CTH) A Better Place (The Duke), Familiar (Playwrights Horizons), Sojourners, Songbird (59e59), Travels...Aunt (KEEN), Seawife, Life of the Party (LaGuardia Arts). Regional: A Music Box Christmas (Hersheypark), Macbeth, As You Like It (Hudson Valley Shakespeare), Company, On Golden Pond, 25th...Spelling Bee (Bucks County). Corporate: Samsung Marcel Ad, Google Facilities designer, Vince Camuto, Under Armour, H&M Coachella (Design), Holiday: Burlington, Jack Spade, Cole Haan, Macy's 2010 (Artisan). Film: Production Design: Common Ground (DNAinfo), Kiddush Club, Greg Holden, Boys in the Street. CityTech Professor, Props & Paint. Penn State University Alum. www.smartsetsbysam.com.
J. David Brimmer (Fight Director) (Fight Master, SAFD) has choreographed some stuff (Selected Broadway: Spring Awakening, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Grace, Wit, Speed the Plow, NY Premieres: In The Blood, Yen, Gloria, Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again., An Octoroon, Punk Rock, We are Proud to Present..., Bethany, Mr. Burns..., Blasted, The Whipping Man, Bug, Killer Joe), and worked with some great folks (David Mamet, Sam Shepard, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Suzan Lori-Parks, Ethan Coen, Conor McPherson, Martin McDonough, Tracy Letts, Kenneth Lonergan, Neil LaBute, Wilson Milam, Evan Cabnet, Doug Hughes, Sarah Benson, Joel Schumacher, Ken Russell, Franco Zeffirelli). "Walk cheerfully over the world, answering that of God in everyone." G. Fox
Danielle Teague-Daniels (Production Stage Manager) Danielle is excited and honored to be joining Soho Rep. For the past 17 years she has worked and reprised her role as SM with many companies (Actors Theatre of Louisville, Clubbed Thumb, 3LD, Lee Strasberg Institute, LAByrinth theater, Rising Circle Theater Collective, Big Apple Circus, NYU Steinhardt, New Georges', Working Theater and New Dramatists to name a few). Last summer she wrapped up Bello Mania at the New Victory Theater on 42nd St! Danielle has worked on two very promising workshops that have a future for this upcoming Broadway season; La Jolla Playhouse's Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and Berkeley Rep's Ain't Too Proud. She has also had the privilege of working at Baltimore Center Stage for their premier production of The Christians this past fall. Additionally, Danielle also worked on Michael Kors fashion show in Shanghai, China in 2014. Danielle is a proud member of Actors Equity and she would like to thank Steve and both of her Flos for their never-ending support!
Genevieve Ortiz (Assistant Stage Manager) Recent credits include The Christians at Baltimore Center Stage. NYC credits: Seven Spots on the Sun at Rattlestick; Alligator at New Georges; The Block at The Working Theater; Pretty Hunger at The Public Theater; The Sun Shines East at The Marjorie S. Deane Little Theater; The Golden Year at WorkShop Theater Company; The Winter's Tale at Actors Shakespeare Company at NJCU; Oleanna at The Players Club; Ghost Dancer at the Mint Theater; Lost on the Natchez Trace; How I Fell in Love; Rum & Coke; My Death at Abingdon Theater. Additional NYC credits include: Songs of Love: A Mixtape NY Fringe Festival; NYMTF's This One Girl's Story; BRIC Arts New Black Fest Morgan Street directed by Anika Noni Rose.
Funding Credits
The Soho Rep. 2017-2018 season is made possible with major support from Kashif Akhter, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Jodi Balsam, Dorothy Berwin, The Berwin Lee Foundation, Maggie and Don Buchwald, Jon & Lou Dembrow, Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, Inc., Barry Feirstein, Howard Gilman Foundation, James Gleick and Cynthia Crossen, Frank Holozubiec, Alfred F. Hubay, The Jerome Foundation, Janice Lee and Stuart Shapiro, Victoria Meakin, John Miller, National Endowment for the Arts, Tim Blake Nelson, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, Jim and Laura Pizzo, Caryl Ratner, Mace Rosenstein and Louise de la Fuente, The Shubert Foundation, Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Jeffrey Steinman and Jody Falco, The Dorothy Strelsin Foundation, Studio Usher, the Venturous Theater Fund of the Tides Foundation, Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, The Tow Foundation, and the Vilcek Foundation.
Soho Rep.'s return to Walker Street is made possible with leadership support from The Tow Foundation, Dorothy Berwin, Barry Feirstein, Howard Gilman Foundation, James Gleick and Cynthia Crossen, Janice Lee and Stuart Shapiro, Jim and Laura Pizzo, Caryl Ratner, and The Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation.
About Soho Rep.
Founded in 1975, and in its theater on Walker Street since 1991, Soho Rep. has built an outstanding reputation for being at the forefront of new and innovative theater, serving as a vital center for contemporary theatre artists.
Soho Rep. is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising, and exuberant new plays, performing to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over half aged 18-40.
Critics continue to herald Soho Rep. as a go-to theatre destination for new and original works. New York Magazine says, "this indispensable theater offers more excitement per chair than any space in town," Time Out New York says, "Soho Rep is the best theater in NYC," and The New York Times declares Soho Rep. to be "a first-class downtown company" and says, "The downtown powerhouse...regularly outclasses the work done on many of the city's larger stages." In 2015, The Village Voice named Soho Rep. the "Best Off-Broadway Theater Company," and the company was listed in Travel Magazine's 2016 "10 Essential Off-Broadway Theaters."
In 2014, Soho Rep. was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement. Over the last decade, Soho Rep. productions have garnered 18 OBIE Awards; the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical; 13 Drama Desk nominations, two Kesselring Awards, The New York Times Outstanding Playwriting Award for Dan LeFranc's Sixty Miles To Silverlake and, a special citation in The New York Drama Critics' Circle's 2012-13 awards. In recent years, Soho Rep. has presented plays by established and emerging theatre artists such as David Adjmi, Annie Baker, Alice Birch, debbie tucker green, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Daniel Alexander Jones, Richard Maxwell, Sarah Kane, Young Jean Lee, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Anne Washburn.
Is God Is kicks off Soho Rep.'s triumphant return to its intimate Walker Street storefront theater, once described by Hilton Als of The New Yorker as "a 70-seat house filled with big ideas." In September 2016, following the discovery that the company had been producing in the space, since moving into the building 1991, without having obtained the proper Certificate of Occupancy, the potential for returning to its intimate home felt slim. Thanks, however, to a citywide effort including the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment and the Department of Buildings, Soho Rep. has resolved the bureaucratic issues and made the modest renovations required to move back in, having successfully completed a $500,000 building fundraising campaign led by Executive Director Cynthia Flowers and the Soho Rep. Board with leadership support from The Tow Foundation. Overcoming that hurdle has cleared the way for the company to once again do what it has become esteemed for in its life to date: provide a platform for vastly diverse artists to realize work that is consistently big in scope, formally challenging and civically engaged.
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