Cast Set for THE FIRE THIS TIME FESTIVAL at The Apollo

FRIGID New York and The Apollo will present the 17th season of the Obie Award-winning The Fire This Time Festival, a platform for playwrights of African and African-American descent to write and produce evocative material for diverse audiences, at the festival's new home at The Apollo Stages at The Victoria, January 23-31, 2026. The festival will feature 10-minute plays by Teniia Micazia Brown, Preston Crowder, Mo Holmes, Naomi Lorrain, DeLane McDuffie, and Donathan Walters, directed by Ken-Matt Martin.

The themes of this season's plays deal with staying loyal to one's community or selling out; families grappling with long buried secrets and the ramifications of these truths coming to light; the financial and emotional toll of providing for ill family members takes on African American women; the continued devastation and tragedy that drunk driving causes on families; and, a starling revelation forces a woman to evaluate her relationship with her partner.

The cast will feature Malik Childs, Naomi Lorrain, Victor Musoni, Kareem Lucas, and Nikiya Mathis.

Performances of the 17th annual Ten-Minute Play Program will take place on:

Friday, January 23 at 7:30pm (Preview Performance)

Saturday, January 24 at 2:30pm (Opening followed by post-show discussion)

Saturday, January 24 at 7:30pm

Friday, January 30 at 7:30pm

Saturday, January 31 at 2:30pm

Saturday, January 31 at 7:30pm (Closing Night)

Everything But-

Written by Teniia Micazia Brown

A story about what's said, what's felt, and what's lost when we don't fully choose.

Black To Save The Day

Written by Preston Crowder

When Sista Steel, a member of the underfunded Black Superhero League, defeats the villainous Gentrifier, she thinks the day is saved. But her fame-hungry ex, Fire Blade, shows up with an offer to join the elite and very white Great Supremacy League, forcing her to choose between community loyalty and personal gain in this humorous superhero satire.

Clumsy

Written by Mo Holmes

A young man crashes his car into a woman's kitchen. She tries to make him grits. How do you forgive an accident like that?

DNR

Written by Naomi Lorrain

After not seeing each other for nearly a decade and a half, Nikki returns home to reconnect with her cousin, Solomon. Eventually, Nikki's true intentions come to light and she presents Solomon with a proposal that would alter their relationship indefinitely. "DNR" is a poignant rumination on family, forgiveness, and faith.

Goose

Written by DeLane McDuffie

A young idealist joins a fiery collective of 1960s freedom-riding activists on their way to a 2020s D.C. protest march. But whose battle are they fighting?

White Diamond

Written by Donathan Walters

As Andrea prepares her mother's funeral in a midwestern town where image and reputation is everything, her son Hakeem arrives with a request: he wants his boyfriend to be more involved in the family. In the thick of grief and tradition, a deeper tension surfaces - one that neither of them expected to face.

Also as part of the festival, The Fire This Time is partnering with three organizations - The Apollo, 651 Arts and FRIGID New York - to screen the triptych PASSION: Survival Source Material for the Betterment and Preservation of Our People written by Gene Powell, a TFTT alum formerly known as Larry Powell.

Powell describes PASSION as a groundbreaking multimedia project and a blueprint toward liberation that serves as an aquifer, an underground reservoir, for Black Queer+ Theatre. Through innovative, multi-platform cinetheatre recordings of three plays by Gene Powell, filmed at Television City in Los Angeles during World Pride and Black Pride LA Week (June-July 2024), PASSION builds a living archive and digital ecosystem. These recordings are further explored as podcast interviews, live spoken word audio dramas, vertical micro-dramas, and other wellness content. Together, these elements create a digital infrastructure where stories, conversations, and artistic expression flow freely, nourishing both artists and audiences.

WERK! THE HOUSE OF PROVIDENCE

Tuesday January 26 at 7pm

UNDER St. Marks (94 St. Marks Place New York, NY 10009)

Part One of a docuseries following Gene Powell, former member of the Legendary Iconic House of Ultra Omni and Carnegie Mellon School of Drama Grad, as they find a home for their story, The House of Providence is a piece about a young artist finding healing in two radical spaces teaching him what it means to be seen, The Acting Conservatory and The LA Ballroom Scene. In 2006!

The Madame of Leimert

Directed by Roger Q. Mason

Wednesday, January 27 at 7pm

651 Arts (10 Lafayette Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217)

A pioneer of Black Gay Nightlife in Los Angeles faces the challenge of balancing mentorship and personal desires in his sixties. The Madame of Leimert is born from Powell being the 2021 recipient of IAMA Theatre Company's Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission, made possible by Shonda Rhimes and The Rhimes Family Foundation. This commission supports an underrepresented writer of color who has not had a play professionally produced.

The Daddy Issue

Directed by Devere Rogers

Thursday, January 29 at 7pm at Apollo Stages at The Victoria

A grieving recording artist meets an older man at a bar, and what begins as a connection turns into a night-long fight to reclaim his life, his body, and his will to stay alive. The Daddy Issue originally began as a 10-minute play called Easy To Love written by Gene Powell that was co-directed by TJ Weaver and Tony award winning actor Tonya Pinkins at the 6th Annual The Fire This Time Festival in New York City in 2015. It was then developed into a full-length play which also had its first public reading at The Fire This Time Festival the following year in 2016.

RSVPs for the screenings will be forthcoming at www.firethistimefestival.com.

The Fire This Time Festival was founded in 2009 by playwright and producer Kelley Girod to provide a platform for playwrights of African and African-American descent to write and produce evocative material for diverse audiences. Since the debut of the first 10-minute play program in 2010, presented in collaboration with FRIGID New York, The Fire This Time Festival has has produced and developed the work of more than 90 playwrights including Katori Hall, Dominique Morisseau, Radha Blank, Antoinette Nwandu, Jocelyn Bioh, Marcus Gardley, korde arrington tuttle, Stacey Rose, Aziza Barnes, C.A. Johnson, Kevin R. Free, Charly Evon Simpson, Angelica Cheri, James Anthony Tyler, Jordan E. Cooper, Nathan Yungerberg, York Walker, Nia Akilah Robinson, Cynthia Grace Robinson and Zoey Martinson.