NEW YORK CITY: Theatre Communications Group (TCG) has announced its support for the voices of Caribbean American women. Conch Shell Productions, in collaboration with Milton G. Bassin Performing Arts Center at York College, will present the Hear Her Call festival (March 29) featuring plays by Caribbean American artists.
The program is supported by Queens Council on the Arts with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. A post-show Q & A will take place with the participants, and the program will also feature an expo of local businesses owned by women of Caribbean heritage.
The festival will include Wendy Arimah’s 1st Sin, 2nd Class, 3rd World, a play inspired by Audre Lorde, Angela Davis, and Ntozake Shange. The performers include AnJu Hyppolite, Nadege Matteis, and Synead Cidney Nichols. Nicoletta Mandriotti will direct.
Next will be Rossely A. Harman’s The Drak Creature, about a young girl who is haunted by an experience with a mystical creature. Matteis will perform. Mandriotti will direct.
Following will be Pan Gyul by Juliette Jeffers, who will star as a 1950s steel pan drummer fighting for her place in a man’s world. Magaly Colimon-Christopher will direct.
The festival will continue with France-Luce Benson’s Fall, about two women confronting each other’s differing views on the division within the Afro-Diaspora and the price of assimilation. The cats will include Hyppolite, Nichols, and Pascale Piquion. Mandriotti will direct.
Next up will be Maggie Diaz Bofill’s Orange, about a 12-year-old born in the U.S. who rejects her Cuban mother’s macaroni and cheese. The cast will include Jessica Carmona, Hyppolite, and Piquion. Colimon-Christopher will direct.
It continues with 3030 by Marjuan Canady, a play set in the Caribbean in the year 3030. Performers will include James B. Kennedy, Hyppolite, Matteis, and Nichols. Colimon-Christopher will direct.
The final piece in the festival will be Nattalie Gordon’s Cooter Soup, about two middle-aged women discussing their newly discovered sexual identities. Colimon-Christopher will direct.
TCG has provided one-year complimentary individual memberships to the festival’s 7 playwrights in honor of Women’s History Month.
