Horse Trade Theater Group Announces 2013 FIRE THIS TIME FESTIVAL

The African American experience is not represented solely by one voice or one style. For the fourth year in a row Horse Trade Management Group will present The Fire This Time Festival, providing a platform for talented early-career playwrights of African and African-American descent to explore new voices, styles, and challenging new directions for 21st century performing arts in order to move beyond common misconceptions of what's possible in "black theater." The festival's core production is a 10-minute play festival, presenting new work written by featured playwrights. Other festival programming will include a panel discussion and fully staged readings of new plays in development.

The 2013 Fire This Time Festival, presented by Horse Trade Management Group, will run January 21-February 2 at The Kraine Theater & The Red Room (both located at 85 East 4th Street between 2nd Ave and Bowery). Tickets to the 10-Minute Play Festival ($15) are available online at www.horseTRADE.info or by calling Smarttix at 212-868-4444. Admission to panel discussions and readings is Pay-What-You-Will.

Fire This Time 10-Minute Play Festival
Thu 1/24 @ 8pm, Fri 1/25 @ 8pm, Sat 1/26 @ 8pm, Thu 1/31 @ 8pm, Fri 2/1 @ 8pm & Sat 2/2 @ 8pm

Nightfall
Written by Cynthia G. Robinson
Directed by Cezar Williams
A Sudanese couple is forced to confront the mayhem that haunts their village and threatens to destroy their family.

Always
Written by Danielle T. Davenport
Directed by Awoye Timpo
When Malik shows up at a reading of his childhood best friend Erica's celebrated new novel after over a decade of distance between them, sparks fly as they navigate an emotional minefield of shared history summoned up by the book's plot.

Poor Posturing
Written by Tracey Conyer Lee
Directed by Kevin R. Free
Can't we all get along? Maybe...if we stop trying so hard.

Orchids and Polka Dots
Written y Nathan Yungerberg
Directed By Nicco Annan
1955: An emotionally stifled housewife, a fledgling young research scientist and a tall glass of water infused with 100 gamma LSD.

Within Untainted Wombs
Written by Dennis A. Allen II
Directed by Christopher Burris
An expecting mother participates in a clinical trial that gives her the ability to communicate with her unborn child, but she soon finds that some thoughts are better left unshared.

Favored Nations
Written by J. Holtham
Directed by Nicole A. Watson
In an upscale office, two brothers meet for the last time to settle their father's will. Secrets are revealed, grudges are settled, teddy bears are threatened with execution. Family...can't live with 'em.

The Sad, Secret (Sex) Life of Steve Urkel
Written by Eric Lockley
Directed by Jonathan McCrory
Sometimes experiments go terribly wrong. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction . . . in bed.

A Panel Discussion on
Submitting, Self-producing, and Other Survival Skills for Artists
Monday, January 21 @ 8pm
This year's panel will feature experts from different sectors of the theatre industry to discuss the skills necessary for being successful such as the importance of self-producing, budgeting, identifying and writing grants and helpful tips for surviving the day to day.

A Full-Length Play Reading of
Dirty Little Black Girls
Written by Patricia Ione Lloyd
Directed by Michael Goldfried
Tuesday, January 22 @ 8pm
Uncover the darkest desires of the purest of hearts. Meet the women who mourn and clean around the skeletons in the closet, with a little help from the devil.

A Full-Length Play Reading of
FOUR
Written by Jocelyn Bioh
Wednesday, January 23 @8pm
Inspired by the soulful Nina Simone song, FOUR imagines the lives of Aunt Sarah, Saffronia, Sweet Thing and Peaches and the men, women and love that binds them.

A Full-Length Play Reading of
THIS PLAY IS UNTITLED: a Working Title
Written & Directed by Antoinette Nwandu
Sunday, January 27 @ 6pm
This is the story of The Woman--her love, her loss, her life--as told by The Narrator. Until, of course, it isn't. With a Thief on the prowl and a gun in her hand UNTITLED begs the question: will the Woman make it out alive?

A Full-Length Play Reading of
Boat People
Written by France-Luce Benson
Sunday, January 27 @ 8pm
In 1980's Miami, FL the controversy over illegal immigrants is heating up, a young girl hiding the truth of who she is is forced to confront her identity, and a Haitian-American family risks losing the American Dream to protect a refugee/revolutionary who has the power to save the country he left behind.

A Full-Length Play Reading of
Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, or TRIPLE CONSCIOUSNESS
Written by Kevin R. Free
Directed by Christopher Burris
Monday, January 28 @ 8pm
None of these siblings knows what to do, and they can't even find common ground in that. A rumination on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness from the playwright of A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People.

A Full-Length Play Reading of
Ndebele Funeral
Written by Zoey Martinson
Tuesday, January 29 @ 8pm
A dark comedy set in modern South Africa as three people, of different backgrounds, find themselves tied to shack in Soweto. A dying woman in exile builds herself a coffin using supplies the government provided her for a new home. Her plans are interrupted when a surprise visit from her best friend and a government official bring the outside world into her tiny shack. An unexpected story of dreams and loss, while they explore who is to blame for their present circumstances, and how to claim their lives in the future.

A Full-Length Play Reading of
Elder's Mythology of Grass. Part 1: Miracle on Monroe
Written by Jerome A. Parker
Wednesday, January 30 @ 8pm
Sparta, NY is a ghost of an industrial town in need of a savior. Depressed drug dealers, ardent church-goers and street smart addicts find their inner-Gods just in the nick of time.