WHITE at Dream Stages at the OffCenter

Rejected by the gallery of his dreams, a spurned gay white cis male artist hires a local Black actress to pose as the creator of his paintings. Together, they create the perfect candidate for the "New America" exhibition: the charismatic, unapologetic Balkonaé Townsend.

White is loosely based on the controversy regarding the 2014 Whitney Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary Art. There was an outcry when the curators included a project by Joe Scanlan, a white artist who created work with a fictional persona, an African-American woman named Donelle Woolford.

WHITE was the winner of the 2015 Terrence McNally New Play Award, which provides a year of development support from Philadelphia Theatre Company, including “readings as well as administrative support and networking to help manage the future of the play beyond its time at PTC.”