Wendell Pierce and Roger Robinson to Star in NYC Premiere of SOME OLD BLACK MAN

59E59 Theaters (Val Day, Artistic Director; Brian Beirne, Managing Director) is thrilled to present the NYC premiere of SOME OLD BLACK MAN, written by James Anthony Tyler and directed Joe Cacaci. Produced by Berkshire Playwrights Lab, SOME OLD BLACK MAN begins performances on Thursday, February 8 for a limited engagement through Sunday, March 4.

College Professor Calvin Jones moves his 82-year-old father Donald - an ailing but doggedly independent, blue-collar Southern farmer - from Greenwald, Mississippi into his Harlem penthouse. An argument over what to eat for breakfast turns into a generational clash over race, opportunity, and a decision that Calvin made years ago.

Wendell Pierce (The Piano Lesson on Broadway; TV's "Treme," "The Wire") and Roger Robinson (Tony Award-winner for Joe Turner's Come and Gone; TV's "How to Get Away with Murder") star in this explosive new piece by playwright-to-watch James Anthony Tyler.

Press Opening is Wednesday, February 14 at 7:15 PM. The performance schedule is Tuesday - Friday at 7:15 PM; Saturday at 2:15 PM & 7:15 PM; Sunday at 2:15 PM. There is an added performance on Sunday, February 11 at 7:15 PM; there is no matinee performance that day.Performances are at 59E59 Theaters (59 East 59th Street, between Park and Madison Avenues). Single tickets are $25 - $40 ($28 for 59E59 Members). To purchase tickets, call Ticket Central at (212) 279-4200 or visit www.59e59.org.

The design team includes Carl Sprague (scenic design); Matthew Adelson (lighting design); and Stella Giulietta Schwartz (costume design). The Production Stage Manager is Tiffany Robinson.

James Anthony Tyler (playwright) has an MFA in Film from Howard University and an MFA in Dramatic Writing from New York University where his concentration was Playwriting. Selected honors include the Paul Robeson Award and John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting. His plays have been developed at La MaMa and Berkshire Playwrights Lab (Some Old Black Man), Classical Theatre of Harlem (The Drop Off), Rattlestick Playwrights Theater (Talkin' To This Chick Sippin' Magic Potion), Asolo Rep, Ars Nova, The Drama League (hop tha A), Finborough Theatre in London and LAByrinth Theater Company (Dolphins and Sharks). He was a member of Harlem's Emerging Black Playwrights Group, a 2014-2015 Dramatists Guild Fellow, a 2015-2016 The Playwrights Center's Many Voices Fellow, a 2016-2017 Ars Nova Play Group Resident, a 2016 Working Farm Playwrights Group Resident at SPACE on Ryder Farm, a 2016 Theatre Masters Visionary Playwrights Award recipient, and is a recent graduate of the Playwrights Program at The Juilliard School. Recent events in 2017 include a production of Dolphins and Sharks at Finborough Theatre in London, and a workshop of hop tha A for the Black and Latino Playwrights Conference in San Marcos, TX.

Joe Cacaci (director), co-artistic director of Berkshire Playwright's Lab, was the founding director of East Coast Arts, where he produced twenty world premiere plays over seven seasons, and the Producing Director, with Dan Lauria, of The Playwrights Kitchen Ensemble in Los Angeles, where over 500 new plays were given staged readings. Cacaci co-produced David Mamet's Obie-winning play Edmond at the Provincetown Playhouse. His own plays have been produced at The Public Theater and The Coconut Grove Theatre, where he also directed, and at the Long Wharf Theater and The Alley Theatre. He has also directed at the Westport Playhouse and commercially in New York and Los Angeles. Most recently, he directed Wendie Malick and Gary Cole in Richard Dresser's Closure (developed at BPL) at NJ Repertory. Last fall, Joe directed Carol Schneider's new play, Movements of the Soul (performed in ASL and spoken English) at BPAC in NYC. He co-created the CBS prime-time series "The Trials of Rosie O'Neill" and was executive producer (show-runner) of two prime-time series: Showtime's "The Hoop Life" and CBS's "The Education of Max Bickford," which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Marcia Gay Harden. He directed the PBS pilot "Cop Shop." Joe teaches television writing in the graduate program of the Film School at Columbia University and undergraduate coursework at Wesleyan University.

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