Providence Black Rep Announces 2007-2008 Theater Season

The Black Rep's season will commence with Trevor Rhone's Two Can Play, a revealing look at the perils of love, marriage, and the American dream… Jamaican style!  In February, Lydia Diamond's adaptation of Toni Morrison's acclaimed novel The Bluest Eye comes to Providence. To cap the season, The Black Rep will present the world premiere The Etymology of Bird, a contemporary urban love story by emerging New York playwright Zakiyyah Alexander.

The FIRST LOOK Reading Series for New Plays in Development will continue throughout the season, beginning in October with A Time of Fire, by Ugandan playwright and Brown University graduate student Charles Mulekwa. In December, Artistic Director Donald W. King will lead Black Rep's Affiliate Artists in a workshop production that continues to pursue Black Rep's core aesthetic values of investigating images of race, class, gender and culture in America and across the African Diaspora.  Black Rep is proud to have a talented group of 17 Affiliated Artists this season who have committed to train, practice, and create together, united under a common philosophy and aesthetic.

The Providence Black Repertory Company 2007-2008 Theater Season:

October 4-November 11, 2007
Two Can Play, By Trevor Rhone - Directed by Michael Rogers

Kingston, Jamaica, circa 1980.  As bullets fly by the windows, Jim and Gloria fantasize about leaving their small war-torn Caribbean nation for a new life in the U.S.  But when fantasy meets reality, their marriage becomes the first victim of American-style idealism.  Two Can Play is a romantic comedy that takes a hilarious and revealing look at the perils of love, marriage, and the American dream.

January 31-March 9, 2008
The Bluest Eye, Adapted by Lydia Diamond from the novel by Toni Morrison - Directed by Don Mays

Lorain, Ohio, 1941.  Eleven-year-old Pecola Breedlove prays for the one thing she knows will change her life – eyes as blue as Shirley Temple's.  The year the marigolds in Lorain do not bloom, Pecola's life does change – in unexpected and devastating ways. This vivid adaptation of Toni Morrison's Pulitzer Prize-winning debut novel is the heartrending story of three girls coming of age into a world that is equal parts beauty and ugliness, love and hate, triumph and tragedy.

April 10-May 18, 2008
The Etymology of Bird, By Zakiyyah Alexander - Directed by Megan Sandberg-Zakian

Brooklyn, New York, 2008.  Another long, hot nyc summer where B-boys, fly girls, and MCs mix with merengue, salsa, dancehall, and the new cop on the block.  Birdy and Jermaine have known each other forever, but this summer, they see each other for the first time.  The Etymology of Bird is a love story about our neighbors, our neighborhoods, and the choices we make that can change everything.

December 7-9, 2007

Tabanca, A Workshop Production, Conceived and Directed by Donald W. King, Developed and Performed by the 07-08 Black Rep Affiliate Artists

A new work in progress that fuses monologues, poetry, visual art, cinema, essays and songs by artists of the African Diaspora. Through an exploration of portrayals of gender, class, race, and power, this new work in progress from Donald King and Black Rep's Affiliate Artists will illuminate the joys and heartaches that unite and divide us across geography and culture.

FIRST LOOK Reading Series for New Plays in Development
Monday, October 22nd, 7 p.m.: A Time of Fire by Charles Mulekwa

Tickets are $20 for general audiences and $10 for students/seniors and may be purchased through Arttix RI (www.arttixri.com, 401-621-6123).  For more information visit www.blackrep.org.

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