2019 Downtown Urban Arts Festival Officially Opens On April 11

The 2019 Downtown Urban Arts Festival , now in its 17th year, officially opens on Thursday, April 11 with R&B and Billboard Top 100 Dance Club recording artist Cece Peniston, in a one-night only concert event at Joe's Pub. The multi-disciplinary arts festival showcasing music, poetry, live theater and film performs through May 18 at Nuyorican Poets Cafe, The Wild Project and Tribeca Film Center, respectively.

Other highlights during the five-week festival include:

-Community poetry slam event, Words Matter, a forum for current social issues where local poets and audience members alike recite their best poems and compete for a cash prize totaling $200. Words Matter is hosted by Jaime Lee Lewis, 2016 Nuyorican Slam Champion and will be held on Saturday, April 13 from 7 PM - 9 PM (sign-up begins at 6:30PM) at Nuyorican Poets Cafe (236 East 3rd Street). Tickets are $12.

-Live theater series featuring new works for the stage by 18 playwrights at The Wild Project (195 East 3rd Street) from Wednesday, April 24 to Saturday, May 11. Tickets are $20. The 2019 DUAF Playwright-in-Residence Helena D. Lewis will be presenting SHEnanigans for three performances (Friday, May 3 at 8 PM; Saturday, May 4 at 3 PM matinee; and Saturday, May 11 at 3 PM matinee).

-Independent film shorts by 16 filmmakers from seven countries, presented at the Tribeca Film Center (375 Greenwich Street) from Wednesday, May 15 to Saturday, May 18. Tickets are $15.

The original festival, conceived as a theater series, was founded in 2001 and curated by artistic director Reg E. Gaines (Tony Award-nominated playwright and Grammy Award-nominated lyricist for Bring in da' Noise, Bring in da' Funk) with the mission to build a repertoire of new American Playwrights that echoed the true spirit of urban life and spoke to a new generation whose lives defy categorization along conventional lines. That mission has since been realized in more than 200 new plays created and refined for the stage by more than 170 writers from a burgeoning multicultural landscape. The addition of poetry, music and international film selections has positioned the Downtown Urban Arts Festival (DUAF) as a unique cultural blend of other festivals' offerings such as the NY Fringe Festival, Toronto Film Festival and SXSW.

Festival tickets range in price from $12-$35 and can be purchased via DUAFnyc.com.

For the complete theater and film program schedules, artist bios and more information, visit: www.DUAFnyc.com.