Photo Flash: BLACK LIGHT Celebrates Opening Night at Joe's Pub

Daniel Alexander Jones makes his debut in The Public Theater's mainstage season with his new show Black Light, starring Jones's alter ego, legendary singer Jomama Jones. Originally commissioned as part of the Joe's Pub New York Voices series, Black Light is a moving, music-laden work - a revival of sorts - for turbulent times. Created by Jones, the show features all original music by Jomama, Laura Jean Anderson, Bobby Halvorson, Dylan Meek and Josh Quat. The show's music direction is by Samora Abayomi Pinderhughes.

Black Light begans Monday, February 12 and runs through Sunday, March 25, with an official press opening on Sunday, February 25. Tickets are available online, over the phone (212-967-7555) and in-person at The Public Theater's box office (425 Lafayette, NYC).

Shanta Thake, Director of Joe's Pub, said, "We are seeing an artist at the height of his career creating new work with a vibrancy of material and urgency of purpose. Daniel Alexander Jones, channeling the great Jomama Jones, is an artist who cuts to the core in ways that are both transformational and transcendent."

Black Light draws musical influence from Prince, Sade, Diana Ross, and Tina Turner, and is marked significantly by the Black American Freedom movement, Afromysticism, goddess mythology and divination. Jomama takes her audience on an intimate journey - the depths of personal and political upheaval, and the shards of shattered illusions - through her story, which is illuminated by phenomenal wit and what The New Yorker calls her "very particular radiance." Black Light removes the barrier between artist and audience, allowing them to bear witness, be witnessed and recharge. It explores the hopes and fears, the signs and signifiers found in the darkest parts of our collective night as we move toward an uncertain dawn.

Black Light is part of New York Voices, the artist commissioning program of Joe's Pub at The Public, made possible, in part, by generous funding by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Photo Credit: Simon Luethi

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