Cast Set for World Premiere of NOTHING, NOTHING at Hero Theatre

Hero Theatre has revealed the full company for its upcoming production of Nothing, Nothing by Amina Henry. The production will be directed by Hero's Artistic Director, Elisa Bocanegra.

The production stars Nedra Snipes, Clinton Lowe, Stacy Highsmith, Cary Thompson, Joseph Henderson, Angie Green, Georgina Elizabeth Okon, and Tamika Simpkins. Rounding out the ensemble are Adrian Quinonez and Shanae Wise.

The creative team includes Maggie Dick (Costume Design) and Gabe Rodriguez (Lighting Design).

Playwright Amina Henry, whose play Troy was commissioned and presented by Hero in 2019, returns with Nothing, Nothing, a site-specific adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing set and performed entirely in a Baptist church. Henry's Nothing, Nothing explores the experience of Black women, joy, self-care and love; interracial relationships; and finding commonalities and acceptance in a church community. This adaptation puts the bonds of love, family, and faith to the test in a hilarious comedy of errors.

Like Amina Henry's previous commission for Hero Theatre, TROY (2019), this commission is part of a special partnership with the Downtown Women's Center and the Alexandria House. Hero will be providing women experiencing houselessness and domestic violence with free tickets, a prologue discussion, and private transportation to and from the show.

Nothing, Nothing is supported, in part, by the National Endowment of the Arts and the California Arts Council.

Performances begin July 14th and run through July 29th at the Friendship Baptist Church, a historic Black church in Pasadena where Martin Luther King Jr. once spoke. Tickets and more information are available at www.herotheatre.org.

Amina Henry

is a Brooklyn-based playwright whose plays, in addition to Troy, include Ducklings and The Animals at JACK (Brooklyn, NY); Happily Ever at Brooklyn College; Bully at Baltimore's Interrobang Theatre; An American Family Takes a Lover, produced by The Cell: a 21stCentury Salon and presented by Theater for the New City in New York, NY; Water at Drama of Works (Brooklyn, NY), The Minstrel Show, produced as part of the 2013 Bring a Weasel and a Pint of Your Own Blood Festival at 13th Street Theatre/CSC. Her work has been developed by and/or presented at The New Group, Clubbed Thumb, The Flea, National Black Theatre, Little Theatre at Dixon Place, The Brooklyn Generator, The Brick, Oregon Shakespeare Festival in the 2013 BLACK SWAN Lab, Kitchen Dog Theater (Dallas, TX), The Brick, HERE Arts Center, the Hive Theatre, the Bowery Poetry Club and Brooklyn College. She was a 2012-2013 Core Apprentice playwright at The Playwrights Center and a 2013 finalist for the Leah Ryan FEWW Playwriting Prize for her play Bully. She was a featured playwright at the 2013 Black and Latino Playwrights Conference at Texas State University. Publications include Hello, My Name Is Joe in the compilation 24 Gun Control Plays, published by NoPassport Press. Amina Henry is a graduate of Yale University, NYU's Performance Studies M.A. program and Brooklyn College's M.F.A. playwriting program. She has been a member of Clubbed Thumb's Early Career Writers Group, Page73's writers group, and Ars Nova writers group.

Hero Theatre

is a community-based company that uses art to model and bring about social and environmental justice. They invite audiences to envision and experience America as they do. Hero examines classical and contemporary works, ensuring that equity, diversity and inclusion remain in the forefront. Hero Theatre and its offshoot, Hero Multimedia, recently launched Nuestro Planeta, a multimedia, new works initiative that educates Latiné film and theater audiences about environmental justice within the Americas.

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