Revolutionary Islands–Caribbean Theatre Project

Revolutionary Islands–Caribbean Theatre Project with France-Luce Benson, Deepa Purohit, Keith Josef Adkins & Awoye Timpo

Monday, Nov 16th, 6:30PM

Join us for Revolutionary Islands, an evening bringing together playwrights, directors, and scholars to create new work engaging with the colonial and revolutionary histories of the Caribbean and its diaspora.

WORTHY, the third installment of France-Luce Benson's Haitian Revolution trilogy, is a one woman show that explores the impact of the "Double Debt" imposed on Haiti by France following the revolution, and Benson's own complicated relationship with money.  Written and performed by Benson herself, directed by Keith Josef Adkins. The In Between: A Love Story by Deepa Purohit explores the colonial and post-colonial migration histories of people, landscapes, and seascapes across islands of the world, inspired, in part, by four Caribbean islands. Directed by Awoye Timpo. Following the readings, the artists will join scholars for a panel conversation exploring the works' themes, creative process, and place within the broader landscape of contemporary theatre and performance. With Benson, Purohit, Timpo, Adkins, actors and Caribbean Festival Directors Patrice Johnson Chevannes and Heather Alicia Simms, as well as playwright Gilda Gonfier from Guadeloupe. Moderated by Frank Hentschker.

REVOLUTIONARY ISLAND / ARCHIPELAGOS: A Pan-Caribbean Playwrights Festival is a continuation of the 2019 publication and play festival Caribbean Theatre Project Act (Actions Caribéennes Théâtrales, ACT).

Bios

Keith Josef Adkins is a playwright, screenwriter and artistic director. His Great Migration play, The West End, had its world premiere at Cincinnati Playhouse and was a finalist for the 2022 Steinberg-ATCA New Play Award. His other plays include The People Before the Park, Safe House, Pitbulls, The Last Saint on Sugar Hill, The Heat Will Kill Everything, produced Off-Broadway and regionally. The People Before the Park was published by Samuel French/Concord Theatrical in 2025. He’s received the Helen Merrill Playwriting Award, Samuel French's Award for Impact and Activism in the Theater Community, Prelude’s Frankie Award as well as National Black Theater's Teer Spirit Award. Keith is the artistic director of The New Black Fest, a 13-year-old theater organization committed to fostering insurgent voices from the African Diaspora. The New Black Fest was in residence at the Lark Play Development Center for six years and commissioned three social justice anthologies, including Facing Our Truth and Hands Up -- both published by Samuel French/Concord Theatrical. A fourth, The Apollo presents… A

New Harlem Renaissance: Short Plays by The New Black Fest, was published in 2024. As a dramaturg, Keith is supporting the development of new work by actress/writer Yvette Ganier and actor/writer Raffeal Sears. As a director, Keith has worked with international writers Penda Diouf and Gilda Gilmer, and actor/writer Samuel Ray Gates whose one-person play When the Swelling Goes Down he staged at PlayMakers Repertory. TV writing credits include  Accused, Outer Banks, The Good Fight. He's also developed TV projects with JJ Abrams, Don Cheadle/Steven Soderbergh and Regina King. 

France-Luce Benson is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter, performer and Assistant Professor of Theatre at CSU San Marcos. Prior to her appointment at CSUSM in 2023, she earned her M.F.A. in Dramatic Writing from Carnegie Mellon University, and was a staff writer on Paramount’s series Lawmen: Bass Reeves. Her play Detained, which had its world premiere at Los Angeles’ Fountain Theatre, was the winner of four NAACP Theatre Awards. Benson’s honors also include The Lily’s Lorraine Hansberry Award, New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Award, Sony Pictures Television Diverse Writers Fellow, and Zoetrope’s Grand Prize for her original screenplay Healing Roots. Her plays have had productions at Williamstown Theatre Festival, The Fire This Time Festival , Fountain Theatre, Billy Holiday Theatre, Crossroads Theatre, Juggerknot Theatre and Ensemble Studio Theatre NYC where she is a company member. Her plays have been commissioned and/or developed by the Tony Award winning Atlantic Theatre Company, The Playwright’s Center, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival, among others. She has been awarded residencies at Djerrasi, The Sacatar Institute in Brazil, and the Camargo Foundation in France. Her plays have been published by Concord Theatricals, Theatrical Rights Worldwide, and Routledge Press. She’s a proud member of the Writer’s Guild of America and the Dramatist Guild. 

Deepa Purohit, a playwright and educator, received her MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College, the City University of New York.  She’s the recipient of the 2026 Playwrights Travel Grant administered by The MAP Fund and supported by the Venturous Theatre Fund for research inspired by The In Between: A Love Story.  She’ll be in residence in Jan 2027 at the cell to develop her performance piece M[xx]: The Dignity Project which she will direct and produce and mount at Target Margin Theater in January 2027 as a part of the Exponential Festival in Brooklyn, NY.   

Deepa made her Off- Broadway debut at The Atlantic Theater Company in New York City with the World Premiere of her play, Elyria directed by Awoye Timpo, in February/March 2023 (2023 Drama League Award Nominee for Outstanding Production of a Play, the 2023 Laurents/Hatcher Playwriting Award: Citation for Excellence in Playwriting ).  In 2024 she won the Hermitage Greenfield prize, a 2-year commission to write M[xx]: The Dignity Project, and also received a 2024 Asian Women’s Giving Circle seed grant to develop the piece.

She’s a 2023-2030 New Dramatists Resident and a 2022 Atlantic Theater Company commissioned artist (w/NYSCA) for her play Mai & Maa also developed with the Public Theater/Brooklyn College Summer Residency Program (2025). Deepa adapted her play Elyria into a TV series with the 2025 Orchard Project Episodic TV Lab.  She co-founded Rising Circle Theater Collective, dedicated to centering the voices of people of color on stage and led the company for 12 years.  Deepa's body of work now totals 13 plays that she penned on her own or co-wrote with writing and life partner Sanjit De Silva.

Awoye Timpo is a Brooklyn, NY based director and producer. Recent credits include Windfall by Tarell Alvin McCraney (Steppenwolf), The Swamp Dwellers by Wole Soyinka (Theatre for a New Audience), The Wash by Kelundra Smith (New Federal Theater), Leroy & Lucy by Ngozi Anyanwu (Steppenwolf), Syncing Ink by NSangou Njikam (Apollo Theater), Elyria by Deepa Purohit (Atlantic Theater), Wedding Band by Alice Childress (Theatre for a New Audience). Other projects: concert performances for independent artists and the 2020 NBA All-Star Game, Ndebele Funeral (59E59, Edinburgh, South African Tour), “Black Picture Show” (Artists Space/Metrograph), and Bluebird Memories (Audible).  Awoye is a Creative Arts Consultant for the African American Policy Forum and a Founding Member of Classix, a collective created to explode the classical canon through an exploration of dramatic works by Black writers and Black performance history, theclassix.org.  

Photo credit for banner: John Akomfrah, Vertigo Sea