West Coast Premiere of COVENANT Comes to ArtsWest in February

ArtsWest will present the West Coast Premiere of COVENANT by York Walker, directed by Nicholas Japaul Bernard. The cast features Simone Alene, Deja Culver, Felicia Loud, Donovan Mahannah, and Kaila Towers. COVENANT performs at ArtsWest from
February 6 – March 2, 2025. 

In this Southern gothic thriller, a struggling guitarist returns to his small Georgia town a blues star and rumors begin swirling that he may have made a deal with the devil to attain his musical genius. Before long, however, it becomes clear he’s not the only one with a secret. A mythic and suspenseful new play that delivers one devilish twist after another, York Walker’s COVENANT explores the power of belief and the thin line between rumor and truth. 

This production welcomes back three stand-out theater artists to ArtsWest, including Felicia Loud who portrayed Billie Holiday in the 2018 production of LADY DAY AT EMERSON’S BAR AND GRILL. Loud also wrote and performed in her original show HERE THERE BE DRAGONS: CHASING MY VOICE along with her Black Stax counterpart Jace Ecaj in 2022. Deja Culver returns after starring in CLYDE’S (2024) as Letitia. COVENANT marks Nicholas Japaul Bernard’s directing debut at ArtsWest. Bernard portrayed the titular character in HEDWIG AND THE ANGRY INCH twice in ArtsWest’s 2018 and 2023 productions.

When asked what drew him to directing COVENANT, Nicholas remarked, “I was drawn to this script - by how lush and tight York Walker made it. There's so much to dig into and so many questions to ask but York kept a vice grip on what he wanted to say, what he didn't want to say, and what he meant to imply. It's clear he wrote this script for actors and I love a playwright who takes care of his actors.”

The 2024-2025 Season at ArtsWest is titled ‘The Family of Things,’ a nod to Mary Oliver’s poem Wild Geese. Like the poem, each of the five plays this season explores the role love plays on the path to finding belonging. Nicholas hopes audiences walk away from COVENANT “considering those they love, despise, look up to, and disagree with and the fact that those people have vast internal lives you will never be able to fully comprehend,” and asking, “How do we reconcile that truth with the human need for connection and empathy? What are the physics of compassion when true understanding is a fool's errand?”

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