Signature Theatre to Continue 'World of the Play' Series with STOP. RESET Panel, 9/28

Signature Theatre is pleased to announce the continuation of its The World of the Play series with a discussion inspired by ReGina Taylor'sstop. reset., now playing in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre at The Pershing Square Signature Center. The panel will take place on Saturday, September 28 at 4:30pm in The Romulus Linney Courtyard Theatre. The event is free and open to the general public. Reservations are not required.

Are we moving towards a world where race and identity don't matter? In ReGina Taylor's stop. reset., the character of J presents a world where race and identity are fluid, due to our ability to live in our minds, rather than our bodies, and we are no longer hampered by the supposed restrictions of skin color and history. Is this where we are headed? As we hit fifty year anniversaries of civil rights milestones, are we actually moving forward or backward towards parity? Meanwhile, our lives online are allowing us to adopt new identities and experiences - is this opening our minds to others, without the context of history and skin color? How do we see ourselves in the future and how do we want to see ourselves? Will race matter in the future?

The World of the Play: Race and Identity in the Future panelists include Jessie Daniels, Sheree Renée Thomas, Thuy Linh Tu, and stop. reset. playwright/director ReGina Taylor. The discussion will be moderated by Brian Phillips.

Just as the layout of The Pershing Square Signature Center encourages a dialogue between different plays and audiences, supplemental programs like The World of the Play invite theatregoers to go deeper into the world of a play, and the world of the artists behind it. For more information on all of Signature's supplemental programs and events, including an upcoming Signature Cinema screening of Tender Mercies, visit signaturetheatre.org.

Signature Theatre is pleased to present the World Premiere of stop. reset., written and directed by ReGina Taylor. The production will play through Sunday, September 29. To purchase tickets for all Signature Productions, call the Signature Theatre Box Office (212-244-7529) or visit signaturetheatre.org.

Background information on the moderator and panelists:

BRIAN PHILLIPS (Moderator) is Co-Editor of the Journal of Human Rights Practice, published by Oxford University Press. He is an independent human rights consultant, most recently for Equitas (formerly Canadian Human Rights Foundation), Amnesty International, the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, and the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers. From 2003 until 2006, he was Chair of the Oxford Brookes University MA program in Humanitarian and Development Practice and he worked for eleven years as a campaigner and educator for Amnesty International in London. During 2001-2002, he was a Joseph Rowntree Quaker Fellow (Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, UK).

JESSIE DANIELS (Panelist), PhD, is Professor at the City University of New York (Graduate Center and Hunter College), and is an internationally recognized expert on the Internet manifestations of racism. Daniels is the author of two books about race and various forms of media, White Lies (1997) and Cyber Racism (2009), as well as dozens of peer-reviewed journal articles. She is currently at work on a memoir about race and identity growing up in South Texas with a father who both identified as Native American and with white racist segregationists, called No Daughter of Mine.

SHEREE RENÉE THOMAS (Panelist). A two-time World Fantasy Award winning editor, Thomas is a native of Memphis. A Cave Canem Fellow and a New York Foundation of the Arts Fellow, her short stories, poems, and articles have appeared in various publications, including storySouth, Callaloo, Essence, Upscale, VIBE, The New York Times, The Washington Post Book World, African Voices, and Black Renaissance as well as in several anthologies, including The Moment of Change: An Anthology of Feminist Speculative Poetry, 80! Memories & Reflections on Ursula K. LeGuin, Mojo: Conjure Stories, Hurricane Blues, Role Call, Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam, The Ringing Ear, Bronx Biannual, and So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction and Fantasy. Sheree's anthologies Dark Matter: A Century of Speculative Fiction from the African Diaspora and Dark Matter: Reading the Bones were winners of the 2001 and 2005 World Fantasy Award. SHOTGUN LULLABIES: Stories & Poems (Aqueduct Press) is the first chapbook of her work.

THUY LINH TU (Panelist) is Associate Professor of Social Cultural Analysis at NYU, where she also serves as the director of the American Studies Program. Her research has been focused on understanding the relationship between culture and economy, particularly the ways that these converge to produce new identities, labor formations, and social networks. She has explored this relationship in a variety of projects that consider how material structures, including commercial markets, state policies, and cultural geographies, shape seemingly immaterial productions, like art, fashion, and beauty. These include The Beautiful Generation: Asian American Designers and the Cultural Economy of Fashion (Duke UP, 2011), which was winner of the Cultural Studies Book Award presented by the Association for Asian American Studies and was Finalist for the Laura Romero Prize from the American Studies Association. She is currently working on a new project, tentatively titled, The Science of Hope: Race, Biology, and Beauty in the Multinational Cosmetics Industry, which examines the production, market, and consumption of a new "science of skin" and its role in shaping global discourses of race and beauty. She is also co-editor of two collections, Alien Encounters: Popular Culture in Asian America (Duke UP, 2004) and Technicolor: Race, Technology, and Everyday Life (NYU Press, 2001).

ReGina Taylor (Panelist). Writer, Director, Actor and Artistic Associate at Goodman Theatre ReGina Taylor is best known to TV audiences as Lilly Harper in "I'll Fly Away" and Molly Blane in CBS's "The Unit." She has received many accolades, including a Golden Globe Award and a NAACP Image Award. Ms. Taylor has played Off Broadway and was the first African American to play Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet" on Broadway at the Belasco Theater. Her critically acclaimed, award-winningCrowns is one of the most performed musicals in the country. Ms. Taylor's The Trinity River Plays received the 2010 Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. Taylor's Drowning Crow premiered at Broadway's Biltmore Theater. Her play Oo-Bla-Dee received the Critics' Circle Award. www.reginataylor.com

Photo Credit: Joan Marcus