The Lark Will Stage A BareBones Production Of Donja R. Love's IN THE MIDDLE

The Lark announces that after a five year hiatus, its BareBones program will return in March 2018, with a workshop production of In the Middle by Donja R. Love (soft, Sugar in Our Wounds) to be directed by Saheem Ali (Twelfth Night, The Public Theater). In the Middle is the third and final play in Love's trilogy, The Love* Plays, a surrealistic exploration of *Queer Love during pivotal moments in Black History: Slavery (Sugar in Our Wounds), The Civil Rights Movement (Fireflies), and the Black Lives Matter movement (In the Middle). The workshop will run at The Lark's BareBones Studio from March 2-11, 2018, at 311 West 43rd Street, 5th Floor, in New York City.

"My plays examine identity by unapologetically dramatizing the multifaceted nuance of Blackness and Queerness - a diverse intersection filled with colorful stories," said Love. "Throughout history, the stories of those that exist on the margins have often been erased. The existence of Queer people of color, particularly of African descent, has repeatedly been washed over, or forgotten altogether. I set out to create a body of work that honors those neglected stories."

In the Middle follows Mary, a woman with a cracked past, who finds herself paralyzed with grief after her son is gunned down by police. Love developed the play during his 2016-17 Van Lier New Voices Fellowship at The Lark, a fellowship designed to help address the lack of inclusion of early career playwrights of color in the theater field. It provides writers of color under 30 with significant artistic and financial support, including a $15,000 stipend, and an individually-tailored program of Lark play development opportunities. Love has worked on In the Middle through multiple Lark programs, including Monthly Meeting of the Minds, Roundtables, and a Studio Retreat, which included the first public reading of the play in May 2017, and at which The Lark hosted a post-show panel discussion entitled The Importance of Radical Queer Narratives on Stage and Beyond, conceived by Love as a way to further the impact he aims for his work to have.

"Sugar In Our Wounds, Fireflies, and In The Middle force us to reckon with the fact that love, without being monolithic, is our most essential need and deserved by all," said Love. "It is my hope that these plays encourage people to be fearless by placing themselves in a world that does not dwell on their tragedy or 'otherness', but rather fully celebrates them and their stories."

Sugar in Our Wounds, the first play in the trilogy, will receive its world premiere production this spring at Manhattan Theatre Club.

BareBones are simply staged and rehearsed, off-book, public presentations of plays in the later stages of development. BareBones are The Lark's most intensive development workshops, with plays receiving three weeks of rehearsal, and up to eight public performances. Past BareBones productions include Dominique Morisseau's Skeleton Crew (Atlantic Theater Company, 2015) Katori Hall's The Mountaintop (Broadway, 2011, Olivier Award for Best Play, 2010), and Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Broadway, 2011, Pulitzer Prize Nominee, 2010).

BareBones are made possible in part by support from FJC, A Foundation of Philanthropic Funds. Lark programs are made possible with leadership support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and the National Endowment for the Arts with additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts, and Axe-Houghton Foundation.

All tickets for In the Middle are free. Reservations are required and can be made through The Lark's website beginning January 15th. The performance on Sunday, March 4th at 3:00pm will be followed by a panel and open conversation, centered around Queerness in the Black Lives Matter movement, coordinated by Hari Ziyad (RaceBaitR) and moderated by Erika Dickerson-Despenza (Black Women's Blueprint).

The Lark is ADA accessible. For specific questions or requests regarding accessibility, please contact Megan McClain at (212) 246-2676, or meganm@larktheatre.org.

As the rain pours down and the water keeps rising, a mother sits in a flooded basement weeping. After her son is gunned down by police, Mary, a woman with a cracked past, finds herself paralyzed with grief. So her mother, sister, and daughter try to uplift and help her wade through the water - as she mourns. But when her tears begin to overflow, deep family secrets rise all around them. And once their painful past floats to the top - there's no telling who's going to drown.

Donja R. Love is an Afro-Queer playwright, poet, and filmmaker. He's the 2017 Princess Grace Playwriting Fellow, a Eugene O' Neill 2017 National Playwrights Conference finalist, The Lark's 2016 Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellow, The Playwrights Realm's 2016-2017 Writing Fellow, the 2016 Arch and Bruce Brown Playwriting Award recipient, and the 2011 Philadelphia Adult Grand Slam Poetry Champion. His work has been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Rising Circle Theatre, The Lark, and The Playwrights Realm. He's the co-founder of The Each-Other Project, an organization that helps build community and provide visibility, through art and advocacy, for LGBTQ People of Color. Select stage-plays include: The Love* Plays (Sugar in Our Wounds, which has a 2018 World Premiere at Manhattan Theatre Club; Fireflies; In The Middle), and soft. Select film work: Modern Day Black Gay (web series), and Once A Star (short film). Training: Juilliard, Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program.

ABOUT Saheem Ali
Originally from Nairobi, Kenya, Saheem is a director of plays and musicals with an emphasis on new work. Recent credits include Twelfth Night (The Public), Nollywood Dreams (Cherry Lane), Dot (Detroit Public Theater), The Booty Call (Inner Voices) and A Lesson From Aloes (Juilliard). He has workshopped new plays by Donja R. Love, Jocelyn Bioh, Jen Silverman, Nathaniel Shapiro, Phillip Howze, Eric Micha Holmes and James Ijames at Playwrights Realm, MCC, New York Stage & Film, National Black Theater and PEN World Voices. He has co-written two musicals with composer Michael Thurber: The Booty Call (Roundabout Underground Reading Series) and Goddess (O'Neill Musical Theater Conference). He was the associate director of The Tempest at The Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park. He is a Usual Suspect and former Directing Fellow at New York Theater Workshop.

ABOUT THE LARK
The Lark is an international theater laboratory, based in New York City, dedicated to amplifying the voices of playwrights by providing transformative support within a global community. Founded in 1994, The Lark provides writers with funding, space, collaborators, audiences, professional connections, and the freedom to design their own processes of exploration. The guiding principal of The Lark's work is the belief that playwrights are society's truth tellers, and their work strengthens our collective capacity to understand our world and imagine its future.

Last year, The Lark served 813 artists, including 95 playwrights, partnered with more than a dozen theaters and universities, and welcomed 2,016 audience members to 31 public presentations. In the past three years 139 Lark developed plays moved on to 274 productions, reaching over 621,130 audience members around the world. In order to provide economic flexibility to writers at different stages of their careers, The Lark has created a portfolio of major playwriting fellowships. The Lark continues to offer a free and open submission process that allows any and all writers to submit to our Playwrights' Week program and maintains free admission to the public for all readings and workshops. Recent plays substantially developed at The Lark include Cost of Living by Martyna Majok, Building the Wall by Robert Schenkkan, Today Is My Birthday by Susan Soon He Stanton, and Sweat by Lynn Nottage.

For more information about the artists, initiatives and plays of The Lark, please visit: www.larktheatre.org.

Photo Credit: Brandon Nick

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