Kara Young to Star in Film Adaptation of Alesha Harris' IS GOD IS Play

Kara Young and Mallori Johnson are set to star as the twin sisters in a new feature adaptation of Alesha Harris' award-winning play Is God Is, according to Deadline. Sterling K. Brown, Vivica A. Fox and Janelle Monae have also been cast in the film, which Harris is adapting from her play. The playwright is also taking on directorial duties. 

Is God Is follows twin sisters Anaia and Racine as they undertake a revenge journey from the Dirty South to the California desert, seeking payback to their father for a horrendous act. Harris' play premiered at Soho Rep in 2018, earning three Obie awards, including Best Play and Best Director. The film adaptation was previously set at independent studio A24 with producer Scott Rudin, but is now being produced with Amazon MGM Orion Pictures.

Earlier this year, Kara Young won a Tony award for her performance in the recent Broadway production Purlie Victorious with Leslie Odom Jr. Young received her second Tony and Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Featured Performance in a Play in the Pulitzer Prize winner, Cost of Living. She made her Broadway debut in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s for which she received a Tony and a Drama Desk Nomination for Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play. 

Aleshea Harris is a playwright, performer and educator who received an MFA in Writing for Performance from California Institute of the Arts, where she met and worked with Nataki Garrett and Jasmine Hughes. She is a winner of the American Playwriting Foundation's 2016 RELENTLESS Award in honor of Philip Seymour Hoffman for Is God Is. Her recent play, On Sugarland, was a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Photo Credit: Jennifer Broski and Genevieve Rafter-Keddy