SOFT Comes to Thymele Arts

Donja R. Love’s SOFT drops the viewer into Mr. Isaiah’s classroom at a men’s correctional facility. Six men wrestle with their interpersonal dynamics while reckoning with the people and the situations that got them lock’d up!  The system may see them as a threat but, when Mr. Isaiah looks at them he sees potential. What is taught in the classroom is a springboard for lifelong learning.

The cast is led by BJ Minor (Star of the HULU series MIKE, based on boxing legend Mike Tyson & The Peacock Network series BEL-AIR) as Dee. Also, starring- RJ Cortana as Jamal, Brandon King as Antonie, Marqi Morgan as Bashir, Angel Miguel Lopez as Eddie, Daniel Mills as Mr.Cartwright , Danielle Johnson as Narrator, Ariel Ortega as Kevin and Deon L. Jones, Jr. as Mr.Isaiah.

Donja R. Love (Playwright) considered One of the Boldest voices in American Theater. Mr. Love is the recipient of 2021 Terrence McNally Award, 2018 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award for his play Sugar in Our Wounds, 2017 Princess Grace Award, 2016 The Lark’s Van Lier New Voices Award & 2016-2017 Playwright’s Realm writing fellowship. He is best known for his 2019 play One in Two based on the 2017 CDC study that found that one in two black gay or bisexual men will be diagnosed with HIV at some point in their life. A student at the prestigious Juilliard School for playwriting during the 2017-2018 semester. A prolific playwright whose plays have been produced by Broadway and Off-Broadway producing organization Manhattan Theater Club, MCC Theater, The Atlantic Theater Company & The New Group. Donja’s latest play 

When We Were Found premiered this March 2025 at Penumbra Theater. 

This summer The Teetee and Lala show will have a showing at Stage and Film 40th season in New York. In 2020, Love began a writing workshop specifically for writers with HIV named Write It Out! This project is partially inspired by Love's experience, having turned to writing as his career after his diagnosis. One in two established Love as a leader in the HIV-positive realm of theatre, especially for narratives involving queer people of color. 

Cece Suazo (Director) Award-winning director, playwright, and activist who’s a theatrical visionary whose credits include Allan Stillson’s Parodoxical: A New Satire Musical, Black Creators Collective’s Thoughts of A Colored Man, Donja R. Love’s Sugar in Our Wounds, NY Times Critic’s Pick Street Children,  NYTW-Ivy Theater’s Incoungurance, Theater Rhinoceros Dead & Breathing & Donja R. Love’s One and Two. As a playwright her works have been produced by The Lark, National Queer Theater, Deidra Speaks Presents and Tony Award winning The Long-Wharf Theater.  She is a interpreter and former writing student of Donja R. Love. She’s recipient of the 2018 The Advocate Magazine Legacy Award and in 2022 received recognition from the Antoinette Perry Organization that produces Broadway’s the Tony Awards for her work as Women in American Theater. She is the founder of BTSM with the TMI Project. She is former member of Theater Communication Group (TCG) special advisory board. Ms.Suazo helms this immersive staged reading.