Cast Announced For DC Premiere Of PASS OVER At Studio Theatre

Studio Theatre has announced the cast and creative team for the DC premiere of Pass Over, playwright Antoinette Nwandu's incisive examination of race and cyclical violence in America. The production runs March 4-April 5, 2020 and will be directed by Psalmayene 24. Starring are Christopher Lovell as Moses and Jalen Gilbert as Kitch, two men stuck on a street corner, dreaming about what their lives will be when they get off the block. They are joined by Cary Donaldson as Mister and Ossifer, white men who disrupt their flow and bring the threat of violence.

In Pass Over, Antoinette Nwandu weaves together Samuel Beckett's absurdist tragicomedy Waiting for Godot, the Exodus saga, and the liturgy of the Black church. Nwandu was also inspired by the friendship between two of her male students at Manhattan Borough Community College and the 2012 death of Trayvon Martin.

"Pass Over is an ambitious layering of myth, history, and the contemporary, nodding to cultural and literary touchstones but grounded in the present," said Studio's Artistic Director David Muse. "Antoinette has crafted a playful and haunting look at the many times young Black men have been told to wait and the violence they face regardless of their patience."

In addition to performances in the Metheny Theatre, Studio is presenting the Pass Over Community Tour, which will take a complete dramatic reading of the play to intergenerational audiences throughout the DC-metro area. Facilitated talkbacks will accompany the reading to help audiences process the play and explore the context of Nwandu's work with more depth. The Pass Over Community Tour will visit:

• Duke Ellington School of the Arts (3500 R Street NW)-April 1, 2020 at 8pm
• Howard University's Environmental Theatre Space (2455 6th Street NW)-April 8, 2020 at 11am and 7pm
• Anacostia Neighborhood Library (1800 Good Hope Road SE)-April 15, 2020 at 6:30pm
• Shaw Neighborhood Library (1630 7th Street NW)-April 16, 2020 at 6:30pm
• Joe's Movement Emporium (3309 Bunker Hill Road, Mount Rainier, MD)-April 18, 2020 at 2pm and 8pm

About Pass Over
Kitch and Moses seem stuck on their street corner, but it don't matter. They joke, a dream, and throw down about the promised land they're heading to just as soon as they get up off the block-what they'll eat, who they'll see, whether today's the day they'll pass over. Allegorical and immediate, humorous and chilling, Antoinette Nwandu's collision of the Exodus saga and Waiting for Godot probes the forces that have marooned these young Black men in a cycle of violence, as they yearn for the promised land.

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