Liberation Theatre Company Partners With The Cell To Present C-MORE FESTIVAL 2019

Liberation Theatre Company (LTC), will have public play readings by members of their Writing Residency Program as part of C-MORE Festival 2019, a production of Nancy Manocherian's the cell (Artistic Director, Kira Simring), March 31 through April 5, 2019 in Chelsea.

LTC is a Harlem-based independent theatrical producer and playwright development company established in 2009. They started the Writing Residency Program in 2017 to provide four early-career Black playwrights with dramaturgical and professional support towards the completion of the first draft of an original full-length play. These public readings are the culmination of ten months of work by the current class of 2018-2019.

Since it's inception in 2016, the C-MORE festival has provided playwrights and theatre developers of color the opportunity to present work that they are passionate about and create visibility for underrepresented narratives. This is the second consecutive year they have invited Liberation Theatre Company to participate.

"We are grateful for the continued support of the cell and this opportunity to showcase our new writers," said Sandra A. Daley-Sharif, Producing Artistic Director of Liberation Theatre Company. "The cell is committed to creating a space for playwrights and storytelling not often heard in theatre today. Our mission is to expand the number of Black playwrights working in theatre, so our objectives neatly intersect."

"Our Writing Residents have worked very hard over the past several months. The festival will allow them and the public an opportunity to hear work-in-progress, performed by professional actors, so that afterward they can make changes and develop their plays further," Daley-Sharif added.

Funding for the 2018-2019 Writing Residency Program was provided by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Left Tilt Fund.

On the opening night of the festival, the cell will present a reading of a new play in development.

Sunday, March 31

Mission San Rafael developed by Zac Jaffee, Zahyde Pietri, and Jerry Soto

A couple puts their extra room up on Airbnb and gets a curious occupant who feeds them tall tales of the old west, Kit Carson, and a dilapidated Spanish Mission in San Rafael CA. While they take in the stories and argue about movies, religion, race, and honor, the ghosts of ancestors are cooking up something mysterious in the boarded up restaurant underneath them.

For the remainder of the week, the schedule of play readings by writers from the Liberation Theatre Company Writing Residency Program is as follows:

Tuesday, April 2
Bastard by Tylie R. Shider

It is 1965. Ishmael, a nomadic guitarist, is incarcerated for vagrancy. To make parole he needs a residence. When he returns home to bury his father on a 24 hour furlough, he has until midnight to solicit the support of his estranged family and reclaim his inheritance.

Wednesday, April 3

House of Sticks by Maia Matsushita

Growing up homeschooled by a single mother in the back roads of New Hampshire, sixteen-year-old Iphis escapes the reality of her home life with the help of a vivid imagination. Then, when a social worker enters the secluded home, Iphis is forced to grapple with the stories she has been told about herself. In this coming of age tale, Iphis must discover who she is if not her mother's daughter, and fight to become the author of her own story.

Thursday, April 4

Flashes & Floaters by Deneen Reynolds-Knott

Rachelle prepares to become a "sandwich mom" balancing care for a newborn with looking after her father with progressive vision loss. In an effort to solve the puzzle of this new life, she joins forces with colleagues to form a workers-cooperatives in the face of overwhelming odds.

Friday, April 5

Sibling Rivalries by Marcus Scott

Sibling Rivalries is an all-male political drama set during the Obama Administration at an Ivy League school. The play follows a diverse group of young black men, all members of a fraternity, who face shifting loyalties and eroded principles when they are forced to compete against one another for a prestigious scholarship/fellowship. The narrative explores racial issues, black camaraderie, competitive suffering, elitism, male bonding, school bullying, apex predators, homosexuality, machismo, and brotherhood and toxic masculinity.

All performances will begin at 7:00 pm at the cell, 338 W. 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011. For more information on how to RSVP go to www.thecelltheatre.org.

Nancy Manocherian's the cell (Artistic Director Kira Simring) is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the incubation and presentation of new works by emerging artists. Founded in 2006, the cell has produced over a dozen critically-acclaimed world premiere productions of new plays and musicals over the past 10 years including The Evolution of Mann, Sam's Room, Bastard Jones, Crackskull Row, The McGowan Trilogy, Horse Girls, Hard Times: An American Musical and more. the cell also features the jazz @ the cell series and has served as a home base for a large community of resident artists and organizations such as Blackboard Reading Series, Artists Without Walls (AWOW), Irish American Writers and Artists (IAW), Sybarite5, and Tribeca New Music.

Liberation Theatre Company was established in 2009 with the mission to create a home for emerging Black playwrights to develop their work and express themselves artistically in a supportive and focused environment. LTC offers dramaturgical services, professional readings, and for eight years also facilitated a widely successful Black Playwrights Group (BPG). Past BPG members include James Scruggs (3/Fifths), James Anthony Tyler (Dolphins and Sharks) and Dennis A. Allen II (The Mud is Thicker in Mississippi ).

In 2010, LTC initiated Harlem9, a successful collaboration of Black theatre producers in Harlem, which began producing the annual 48Hours in... Harlem 10-minute play festival in August 2011. 48Hours in... Harlem received an Obie Award in 2014, and several anthologies of plays written for the festivals have been published and made available to drama schools, libraries and the general public.

To post a comment, you must register and login.