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The New Black? Contemporary Performance and Minstrelsy

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This event has passed.
Start:
Mar 1, 2010
End:
Mar 1, 2010
Cost:
Free
Venue:
Segal Theater
Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins with Neighbors director Niegel Smith. Photo by Nella Vera

Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins with Neighbors
director Niegel Smith.
Photo by Nella Vera

Join us for an evening with playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (Neighbors, The Change, The Octoroon) and special guests for a dynamic discussion on race and performance. From The Wooster Group to Jump Jim Crow to The Scottsboro Boys, minstrelsy and blackface has been “having a moment” in New York performance. What has fueled the recent revival of this early-American performance style? How are young directors and playwrights addressing themes of race and representation in their work? The event will feature readings from excerpts of historical and contemporary American plays. With Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Niegel Smith, Donya K. Washington, Jesse Cameron Alick and Morgan Jenness (moderator).

Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins is a Brooklyn-based playwright and performer from Washington, D.C., whose plays include: The Change, Neighbors, Face #1-3, Thirst, Zoo, Heart!!!, and Content. His work has been/will be seen at Prelude ’08 and ’09, New York Theatre Workshop, PS122, McCarter Theatre, Dixon Place, Providence Black Repertory, Links Hall, and Soho Rep. He is a former NYTW Playwriting fellow and alum of the Soho Rep. Writers/Directors Lab, and is currently a member of the Ars Nova Playgroup, the Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, and is the 2009/2010 Soho Rep. Strelsin Fellow. His play Neighbors can currently be seen at The Public Theater; his adaptation of The Octoroon will premiere at PS 122 in the late spring of 2010. He also holds an M.A. in Performance Studies from NYU..

6:30 p.m., Monday, March 1, 2010
Martin E. Segal Theatre. Free!