Harlem9 Presents 48 HOUR IN HARLEM, 8/14

Harlem9 presents 48 HOUR IN HARLEM - a twist on the traditional 24- hour play festival. The inaugural event of 9 producers, bringing together 6 playwrights, 6 directors, and 18 actors to re-conceive classic plays from the African-American Diaspora. Harlem9 aims to explore the past, present, and future of black culture and our rich history of storytelling, thus serving to contribute to the re-invigoration of the Harlem community. 48 HOURS IN HARLEM's final presentation is Sunday, August 14, 2011. This one night only performance is at 7pm at Harlem School of the Arts. Full show details and performance schedules are below. Tickets, now on sale are $15 pre-sale for the performance and available by calling 1-800-838-3006 or by visiting www.brownpapertickets.com

The 6 playwrights:Harrison David Rivers, Dominique Morriseau, Keith Josef Adkins, Derek Lee McPhatter, Ayanna Maia, Mfoniso Udofia, will each be re-conceiving from one of the following plays: Dutchman by Amiri Baraka, Zooman and the Sign by Charles Fuller, Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy, Day of Absence by Douglass Turner Ward, Black Terror by Richard Wesley, and The Colored Museum by George C. Wolfe.

Directors Nigel Smith, Nicole Watson, Christopher Burris, Melissa Maxwell, Russell G. Jones, and Tamilla Woodard will each direct one of the new 10-minute plays.

Harlem9 is an arts organization comprised of 9 producing entities that have come together in Harlem to explore the past, present and future of black culture and celebrate the rich history of storytelling within the African diaspora. Blackboard Reading Series (Garlia Cornelia Jones), Earth Seed Vision (Bryan Glover), E. Michael Lockley, goodfilm (Deborah Goodwin), Jonathan McCrory, Liberation Theatre Company (Sandra Daley and Spencer Barros), Soul Productions (Erin Washington), and With a Cherry on Top Productions (Erin Cherry), are the producers that comprise Harlem9.

For more information, please visit www.harlem9.org