Photo Coverage: New York Theatre Workshop Celebrates Opening Night of SLAVE PLAY

New York Theatre Workshop presents the world premiere of Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris (Daddy, Zola), directed by two-time Obie Award winner Robert O'Hara (Bootycandy), which will now play additional performances through Sunday January 13, 2019. Slave Play began previews on Monday, November 19, 2018 and opened last night, Sunday, December 9 at New York Theatre Workshop (79 E. 4th Street New York, NY 10003).

The cast for Slave Play features Ato Blankson-Wood (Hair), James Cusati-Moyer (Six Degrees of Separation), Sullivan Jones ("The Looming Tower"), Chalia La Tour (The Review or How to Eat Your Competition), Irene Sofia Lucio (Love and Information), Annie McNamara (Everyone's Fine with Virginia Woolf), Paul Alexander Nolan (Escape to Margaritaville) & Teyonah Parris (If Beale Street Could Talk).

Slave Play features scenic design by Clint Ramos (Torch Song), costume design by Dede Ayite (American Son), lighting design by Jiyoun Chang (Plot Points in Our Sexual Development), sound design by Lindsay Jones (Feeding the Dragon), and properties by Noah Mease (Light Shining in Buckinghamshire). Movement will be by Byron Easley (Langston in Harlem). Claire Warden (Intimacy Directors International) serves as the Intimacy & Fight Director, Amauta Marston-Firmino (Managing Editor at Theater Magazine) as Dramaturg, Dawn-Elin Fraser (Once on This Island) as Dialect Coach, and Jhanaë K-C Bonnick (Light Shining in Buckinghamshire) as Stage Manager.

The old South lives on at the MacGregor Plantation-in the breeze, in the cotton fields...and in the crack of the whip. It's an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master's House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip's fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary's big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.

In this provocative and explosive new play, Jeremy O. Harris rips apart history to shed new light on the nexus of race, gender and sexuality in 21st century America. Obie Award winner Robert O'Hara directs. Slave Play is the recipient of the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences and the 2018 Paula Vogel Award.

Photo Credit: Linda Lenzi