Liberation Theatre Company Welcomes Four Early Career Playwrights Into Their 2023-2024 Writing Residency Program

In a further commitment to their mission, Liberation Theatre Company has chosen four emerging playwrights to participate in the sixth year of their Writing Residency Program for 2023-2024.

The Harlem-based theatre company is a home for Black playwrights in the early stages of their career and launched the Writing Residency Program in 2017. Support is provided by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Playwrights in the program receive dramaturgical and career support over a ten-month period beginning in May, during which time they will be required to complete the first draft of a new original full-length play. The plays will then have an opportunity to receive a reading in the Spring of 2024.

"We are excited by the opportunity to work with this year's group of playwrights. All four of them have only recently started their careers but view this residency as a chance to focus on their writing in the company of people who will understand and support them," said Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Producing Artistic Director of LTC. "To provide a supportive, nurturing yet challenging environment for Black playwrights has been our objective since Year One of the program."

"What makes us doubly proud is the ability to continue to offer this residency. In the past few years since the pandemic began, we've all seen resources for playwrights disappear. Organizations have closed doors and programs have ended, making the already solitary act of writing for the theatre that much harder," she added. "We serve a unique population-early career Black playwrights-who are searching for a place to fit in. We provide that place."

Playwrights will meet monthly as a group with LTC staff to share work in progress and offer each other feedback. They will also have access to theatre events around New York, dialogue with working professional theatre artists, attend a writers' retreat, and have access to directors and professional actors for table reads and their end-of-residency reading. Each writer will receive an honorarium upon successful completion of the program.

In their own words, here are the bios of the playwrights in the Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program for 2023-2024:

Rudy Bamenga is a French-born, NYC-based writer, performer and storyteller from Democratic Republic of Congolese descent. It is his hope and goal as an artist to share stories of the human condition that reflect underrepresented journeys that are still not fully seen in this ever-evolving world.

Olga El is an award-winning, emerging playwright who aims to inspire change-on the level of the personal, communal, or beyond-that will ultimately lead to a more just, compassionate, and healthy society. Movement-particularly martial arts; aerial arts; and dances from all over Africa and the Diaspora-is seamlessly interwoven into her work.

Anthony T. Goss is a New York City based Actor/Writer from Boston, MA. He grew up playing basketball but upon graduating from college, transitioned from athlete to artist. He has written films that have screened at festivals and recently his short film The Exception, was a finalist in the Ida B. Wells Disrupting the Master Narrative Fund. His mission as a playwright is to "Make theatre cool."

Jerrica D. White is creating space to experience freedom through storytelling. She examines the spectrum of Blackness with a focus on family dynamics, relationships, love, and mental health. She is a disrupter and through her words, prophetically brings her audience into cycles of self-love, healing, greater faith, and joy.

Liberation Theatre Company is managed by Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, co-founder and Producing Artistic Director, Spencer Scott Barros, co-founder and Associate Artistic Director, and Bernard J. Tarver, Associate Producing Director.

Past members of the Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program since its inception in 2017: Shawn Nabors, Germaine Netzband, Liz Morgan, Nathaniel Blake Johnson, Deneen Reynolds-Knott, Maia Matsushita, Marcus Scott, Tylie Shider, Jessica Charles, Camille Darby, Johnny G. Lloyd, Jeremy O'Brian, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, Karen Chilton, Malcolm Tariq, Travis Tate, Calley N. Anderson, Zakeia Tyson-Cross, Devon Kidd.

LTC was established in 2009 with the mission to create a home for emerging Black playwrights to develop their work and express themselves artistically in a supportive and focused environment. Directly and indirectly, LTC has helped to develop or provide exposure to more than 100 writers through various programs.

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