PS 122 Presents Thomas Bradshaw's 'Southern Promises'
By: Robert Diamond Aug. 18, 2008
Playwright provocateur Thomas Bradshaw ignites the stage yet again in one of his signature inflammatory satires. Following sold out and controversial runs at Performance Space 122, including Prophet and Purity, and elsewhere, including Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist and Cleansed, Bradshaw teams with acclaimed director Jose Zayas (a/d Talk Radio) for an explosive new creation that is not for the faint of heart.
When the master of the plantation dies, he wills his slaves to be freed, but his wife doesn't think that good property should be squandered. Pandemonium ensues. The play pulls from the true stories of slave narratives from The Great Escapes including that of Henry Box Brown, a 19th century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists in a dry goods container. Southern Promises provides a unique portrait of the old south.
The cast of Southern Promises is Lia Aprile, Jeff Biehl, Matt Huffman, Sadrina Johnson, Peter Mccabe, Derrick Sanders, Hugh Sinclair, and Erwin Thomas.Thomas Bradshaw's play entitled Purity was produced at Performance Space 122 in January 2007 and his plays Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist and Cleansed were produced on a double bill at The Brick Theatre in February '07. His plays Prophet, Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist, Cleansed, and Purity are all published by Samuel French, Inc. Strom/Cleansed were nominated for Outstanding Original Full Length Script by the 2007 New York Innovative Theater Awards. He has been featured as one of Time Out New York's ten playwrights to watch, as one of Paper Magazine's 2006 Beautiful People, and Best Provocative Playwright by the Village Voice in 2007. His play entitled Prophet was presented at PS 122 in December 2005 and Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist won The American Theater Coop's 2005 National Playwriting Contest. His was a fellow at New York Theater Workshop in 06-07' and is now a Usual Suspect. Cleansed will also be published in Plays and Playwrights 2008. He has been a member of Soho Rep's writer/Director lab as well as Lincoln Center's. He performed in the premiere of Richard Maxwell's The End Of Reality at The Kitchen in January 2006 and he performed in Young Jean Lee's Pullman, WA at PS 122 in March 2005. He performed throughout Europe with The End Of Reality in the fall of 06'. He received his MFA from Mac Wellman's playwriting program and is a Professor at Brooklyn College and Medgar Evers College. Thomas is also the recipient of a 2006 Jerome Foundation Grant. Strom Thurmond Is Not A Racist was produced in Los Angeles in June 08' and Thomas's play Dawn will receive a workshop with New York Theater Workshop at Dartmouth College in August. Dawn will also be translated into German and be presented at Theater Bielefeld in Germany in October. His play Purity was published by Theaterheute in Germany in April and his play Dawn will be published by Theater Der Zeit in October. He is currently working on an adaptation of The Book Of Job which has been commissioned by Soho Rep. He is also Soho Rep's 2008-2009 Streslin Fellow. He is also a Playwriting Fellow at The Lark Play Development Center.
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