The Fire This Time Festival Unveils 2025 Festival Lineup

The Obie Award-winning The Fire This Time Festival will return from January 23 - February 2, 2025 at wild project. The 2025 festival will feature six World Premiere ten-minute plays by Brittany Fisher (2021 Kennedy Center Lorraine Hansberry Award for How to Bruise Gracefully), FELISPEAKS (commissioned by the Irish Repertory Theatre and Fishamble the New Play Company for the Transatlantic Commission Programme), Jeanette W. Hill (Audelco award winning playwright), D.L. Patrick (AUDELCO Award nominee for Study in Black), TyLie Shider (2022-23 McKnight Fellow in Playwriting at the Playwrights' Center), and Garrett Turner (2020 Arts & Social Justice Fellow at Emory University). The 16th annual Ten-Minute Play Program will be directed by Kimille Howard (Assistant Director of Ain't Too Proud on Broadway). The full performance schedule for the festival is forthcoming.

The season's ten-minute plays center on the experiences of a myriad of intergenerational Black women from different backgrounds, eras and social strata both in the U.S. and abroad. The themes of the bonds of sisterhood that transcend time and space; the physical and emotional toll that caring for a loved one with a terminal disease places on the caregiver; an African immigrant mother and daughter adjust to living in a foreign land while coming to terms with gender and sexuality within their family; a successful woman strives to emerge from the shadow of her husband's late wife; a working class woman incites her coworkers to free themselves from the binds of capitalism and exploitation; and, a young performer makes a drastic decision to remove a traumatic and tragic incident from her memory.

Prior to the annual festival in January, TFTT will be presenting a one-night only staged reading of Ten-Minute Plays from past seasons including "The Sporting Life of Icarus Jones" by Marcus Gardley, "Slow Gin Fits," by Angelica Cheri, "Panopticon" by Cyrus Aaron and others in collaboration with The Billie Holiday Theatre in Brooklyn, New York. The reading is part of the Billie Holiday Theatre's inaugural Black Narrative Theater Series which is celebrating Black theater during the weekend of November 15-17, 2024. The staged reading, directed by TFTT's Producing Artistic Director Cezar Williams, will be held on November 16th at 7:30pm. 

Plays included in the 16th Annual TFTT Ten-Minute Play Program in January include:

Pound Cake

Written by Brittany Fisher

A young Billie Holiday awaits a medical evaluation as she considers signing up to be a testing candidate for a procedure she believes will alter her memory, as doctors enter the early stages of discovering the lobotomy. While she waits, she has a life-changing encounter.

OUT

Written by FELISPEAKS

"OUT" is a short play about a Nigerian mother and her Black Irish daughter navigating the complexities of queer identity and what it means to be a part of the LGBTQIA+ community. It is about learning, loss and acceptance.

Just One Good Day

Written by Jeanette W. Hill

As the full-time caregiver for her husband Greg, Sonya Davidson battles the overwhelming burden of his deteriorating health, struggling with feelings of inadequacy, anger, and guilt. As she yearns for one day of normalcy, she fears that in holding on to the man she loves...she may lose herself.

But Not Forgotten

Written by D.L. Patrick

"But Not Forgotten" is a conversation between two sisters -- one of whom is missing, and the other who keeps the search, and her sister's memory, alive. It is about the bonds of sisterhood that transcend time, space and death.

Security Watch

Written by TyLie Shider

Hagar and Abram are getting ready for a romantic, life changing, work-night out, until a keepsake drives a sharp wedge between them and causes them to question the security of their relationship.

Immanentize the Eschaton

Written by Garrett Turner

The workers at this car part factory are just trying to get by-until they encounter their newest co-worker. She has a lot to say, and it might cause trouble. Or will it cause revolution?

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