Quincy Tyler Bernstine & More Join Soho Rep's WE ARE PROUD TO PRESENT A PRESENTATION..., Now thru 12/2

Soho Rep presents the New York premiere of Jackie Sibblies Drury's We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915, directed by Eric Ting. The 13-time OBIE-winning theater presents We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…,in association with John Adrian Selzer, from tonight, November 7 to December 2, 2012. Soho Rep will also offer FEED companion programming throughout the run; see details below.

We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… will run tonight, November 7 – December 2 at Soho Rep (46 Walker Street). Performances will take place Tuesdays through Sundays at 7:30 P.M., with an additional matinee on Saturdays at 3:00 P.M. Tickets, which run $20 - $35 (with $0.99 Sunday tickets offered for performances on November 18 and 25), are available at www.sohorep.org and 212.352.3101. Critics are welcome as of Saturday, November 10 for an official opening on Tuesday, November 13.

We are Proud to Present a Presentation… is a humorous and harrowing work by a fierce new theatrical voice: the playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, a member of Soho Rep's 2011-2012 Writer / Director Lab. In the play, a troupe of American actors stumble over questions of authenticity and appropriation as they attempt to reconstruct the little-known first genocide of the 20th Century – and land in an exploration that hits closer to home.

For the New York premiere at Soho Rep, Sibblies Drury and Ting have devised an environmental new staging that will transform Soho Rep's oft-reconfigured Tribeca home. The play had its world premiere at Chicago's Victory Gardens Theater earlier this year.

The New York premiere features Quincy Tyler Bernstine (born bad at Soho Rep, Ruined at MTC, Vibrator Play at Lincoln Center / Broadway) as Black Woman, Lauren Blumenfeld (Six Degrees of Separation at Williamstown) as Actor 5/Sarah, Phillip James Brannon (The Ballad of Emmet Till at the Goodman Theatre, Elmina's Kitchen at Congo Square, Amadeus at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre) as Actor 4/Another Black Man, Grantham Coleman (Romeo & Juliet at Actors Theatre of Louisville) as Actor 2/Black Man, Jimmy Davis (Walworth Farce at Studio Theater DC) as Actor 3/Another White Man and Erin Gann (The Aliens at Rattlestick) as Actor 1/White Man,

We are Proud to Present a Presentation… features sets by Mimi Lien, costumes by Toni-Leslie James, lights by Lenore Doxsee, sound by Chris Giarmo, projections by Jeff Larson, and fights by J. David Brimmer.

Through the FEED program, which offers post-performance events aimed at enriching the audience's experience of the work on stage, Soho Rep will offer several events during the run of We Are Proud To Present a Presentation….

Programming includes:

Friday, November 9: Creative Team Talk – Members of the creative team discuss their conception of the production. Moderated by Raphael Martin, Soho Rep's Literary & Humanities Manager

Thursday, November 15: What is Meta-Theater ? – A panel discussion with Mark Russell (Festival Artistic Director, Under The Radar), Young Jean Lee (Playwright), Helga Davis (Performer, Einstein on the Beach, Jomama Jones Radiate) regarding this topic and how it relates to both their work and We Are Proud to Present a Presentation…. Panel curated and moderated by Hilton Als (The New Yorker).

Tuesday, November 20: An Evening with the Ambassador – Join the Namibian Ambassador to the UN, His Excellency Wilfried Emvula, as he reacts to the production and gives context to the history surrounding the play.

Saturday, December 1: Jackie Sibblies Drury in Conversation – Drury in conversation with master playwright Erik Ehn, Chair of MFA Playwrighting, Brown University.

Also, on the morning of Saturday, December 1 from 10:00 AM to 1:30 PM, Erik Ehn will lead a very special FEED event: What the Silence Requires is that I Speak, a masterclass exploring the two themes that are entwined within We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… – genocide and art.

This class is open to the public and will center on writing exercises. Ehn will model how to talk about things for which you cannot find words. Nobody will have to share any traumatic experiences. The class will be an interactive experience with Ehn, who brings his world-famous teaching and thinking. There are 15 spots for participants and 30 for observers. Reservations for the class can be made by visiting www.sohorep.org.

Unless otherwise noted, all FEED events begin immediately after performances. Go to www.sohorep.org/feed for more information and updates.

Jackie Sibblies Drury is a Brooklyn-based playwright. Her play We Are Proud to Present a Presentation… had its world premiere at Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. Sibblies Drury's work has been featured at PRELUDE.11, The Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Victory Gardens 2010 Ignition Festival, American Theater Company's 10 x 10 Festival, and The Magic Theatre's Virgin Play Festival. She received a 2012-13 Van Lier Fellowship at New Dramatists, and has been a member of the 2011-12 Soho Rep Writer/Director lab, a 2010-12 New York Theater Workshop Emerging Artist of Color Fellow, and a member of The Civilians' R&D Group. She is the dramaturg and contributing writer for Zero Cost House, a collaboration between Pig Iron Theatre Company and Japanese playwright Toshiki Okada. Sibblies Drury is a NYTW Usual Suspect and a MacDowell Colony fellow, and is on committees to organize classes for Pataphysics Playwriting Workshops and The Public School New York. Sibblies Drury is a graduate oF Brown's MFA playwriting program, where she received the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting. Her play Social Creatures was commissioned by Trinity Repertory Theater Company in Providence RI, and will premiere there in 2013. She is the inaugural recipient of the Jerome New York Fellowship for 2012-2014.

Eric Ting is Associate Artistic Director at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven, CT. For Long Wharf, Ting has directed the world premieres of Aditi Kapil's Agnes Under the Big Top and The Old Man and the Sea (which he also co-adapted), Sylvia, Bad Dates, Italian American Reconciliation, The Bluest Eye (co-production with Hartford Stage), Underneath the Lintel, It's a Wonderful Life: A Radio Play, and his adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Macbeth (1969). Other work includes Donald Margulies's Shipwrecked: An Entertainment… (Shakespeare Santa Cruz), A.R.T.'s production of Anna Deavere Smith's Let Me Down Easy, The Little Prince (Roundhouse Theatre) and puppet design for Bizet's The Pearl Fishers (Opera Boston). This fall, in the 30th BAM Next Wave Festival, he directed dancer/choreographer Nora Chipaumire's Miriam. Ting's work has been presented internationally, including France, Canada, Romania, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Bali. He is a founding member of the artists' collective INTELLIGENT BEASTS. Ting has served on multiple grant and fellowship panels including the Jerome Foundation and the NEA. Personal awards and grants include a TCG New Generations Future Leaders fellowship and a Jerome & Roslyn Milstein Meyer Career Development Prize.

Founded in 1975, and in its theater on Walker Street since 1991, Soho Rep has built an outstanding reputation for being at the forefront of new and innovative theatre, serving as a vital center for Contemporary Theatre artists.

Soho Rep is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising, and exuberant new plays. They perform to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over three-quarters aged 18-40.

Over the last decade, Soho Rep productions have garnered thirteen OBIE Awards; six Drama Desk nominations, Two Kesselring Awards for Melissa James Gibson and Mark Schultz and The New York Times Outstanding Playwriting Award for Dan LeFranc's Sixty Miles To Silverlake. In recent years, Soho Rep has presented plays by established and emerging theatre artists such as Annie Baker, Richard Maxwell, Sarah Kane, Daniel Alexander Jones, Debbie Tucker Green, Mac Wellman, Young Jean Lee and Nature Theater of Oklahoma.

Pictured: Playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury.

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