Saturday, March 7, 2009
Go See: ANGELA'S MIXTAPE
Presented with New Georges and Hip-Hop Theater Festival...
ANGELA’S MIXTAPE
By Eisa Davis
Directed by Liesl Tommy
April 6 – May 2, 2009
Mondays through Saturdays at 8 PM
At the Ohio Theatre
66 Wooster Street
Soho
ANGELA'S MIXTAPE
Using the rhythms of music and memory, Eisa tells the story of her radical upbringing -- in a family that includes her aunt, professor, and activist Angela Y. Davis. With a legacy like this, what do you take, and what do you leave behind? The title itself forges an unusual theatrical form: just like a mixtape, pace is primary, flow is foremost, and the text is not just spoken, but danced and sung. Time shifts between the 70s, 80s, and 90s as smoothly as a DJ fading from song to song. Crossing cultural borders as it scratches through time, the play moves from Angela's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, to the House of Detention where she was once held prisoner, to the playgrounds of Eisa's Bay Area public schools, the dorm rooms of the Ivy League and the shores of Senegal. The music crosses styles and decades, but it's Hip-Hop and a b-girl stance that keeps the piece bouncing in the present.
Tickets:
Premium (Reserved) Seating - $35
General Admission/Seniors/Students - $20
To Purchase Tickets - CLICK HERE
About Eisa Davis
Eisa Davis's plays include BULRUSHER, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 (Urban Stages, Shotgun Players fall 2007, published in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2006), WARRIORS DON'T CRY (Cornerstone Theater Company), HIP HOP ANANSI (Imagination Stage), ANGELA'S MIXTAPE (Synchronicity Theatre, 2008), SECRETARY OF SHAKE (in Point of Revue, Mixed Blood), PAPER ARMOR, SIX MINUTES, UMKOVU, and THE HISTORY OF LIGHT (commissioned by the Geva). Eisa is a resident playwright at New Dramatists. She is also the winner of the Helen Merrill Award, the Whitfield Cook Award, the John Lippmann New Frontier Award, and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. Her work has been developed by the Hip Hop Theater Festival, New York Theater Workshop, New York Stage and Film, LAByrinth Theater Company, the New Group, Soho Rep, the Flea, Rattlestick, the Cherry Lane, Portland Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Cleveland Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Yale University, Nuyorican Poets Café, the Schomburg Center for Black Research, and the Culture Project, among others. Eisa's writing has been published in American Theatre, The Source, To Be Real, Everything But The Burden, Step Into A World, Role Call, and Total Chaos. As an actress, Eisa's recent work includes the rock musical Passing Strange at the Public Theater, the films Robot Stories, Apparition of the Eternal Church, Happenstance, Confess, and The Architect, television appearances on The Wire and Law and Order, as well as numerous theatre credits in New York, regional theatres, development centers, and in her own plays.
ANGELA’S MIXTAPE
By Eisa Davis
Directed by Liesl Tommy
April 6 – May 2, 2009
Mondays through Saturdays at 8 PM
At the Ohio Theatre
66 Wooster Street
Soho
ANGELA'S MIXTAPE
Using the rhythms of music and memory, Eisa tells the story of her radical upbringing -- in a family that includes her aunt, professor, and activist Angela Y. Davis. With a legacy like this, what do you take, and what do you leave behind? The title itself forges an unusual theatrical form: just like a mixtape, pace is primary, flow is foremost, and the text is not just spoken, but danced and sung. Time shifts between the 70s, 80s, and 90s as smoothly as a DJ fading from song to song. Crossing cultural borders as it scratches through time, the play moves from Angela's hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, to the House of Detention where she was once held prisoner, to the playgrounds of Eisa's Bay Area public schools, the dorm rooms of the Ivy League and the shores of Senegal. The music crosses styles and decades, but it's Hip-Hop and a b-girl stance that keeps the piece bouncing in the present.
Tickets:
Premium (Reserved) Seating - $35
General Admission/Seniors/Students - $20
To Purchase Tickets - CLICK HERE
About Eisa Davis
Eisa Davis's plays include BULRUSHER, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 (Urban Stages, Shotgun Players fall 2007, published in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2006), WARRIORS DON'T CRY (Cornerstone Theater Company), HIP HOP ANANSI (Imagination Stage), ANGELA'S MIXTAPE (Synchronicity Theatre, 2008), SECRETARY OF SHAKE (in Point of Revue, Mixed Blood), PAPER ARMOR, SIX MINUTES, UMKOVU, and THE HISTORY OF LIGHT (commissioned by the Geva). Eisa is a resident playwright at New Dramatists. She is also the winner of the Helen Merrill Award, the Whitfield Cook Award, the John Lippmann New Frontier Award, and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Cave Canem, and the Van Lier and Mellon Foundations. Her work has been developed by the Hip Hop Theater Festival, New York Theater Workshop, New York Stage and Film, LAByrinth Theater Company, the New Group, Soho Rep, the Flea, Rattlestick, the Cherry Lane, Portland Center Stage, Hartford Stage, Cleveland Playhouse, Seattle Rep, Yale University, Nuyorican Poets Café, the Schomburg Center for Black Research, and the Culture Project, among others. Eisa's writing has been published in American Theatre, The Source, To Be Real, Everything But The Burden, Step Into A World, Role Call, and Total Chaos. As an actress, Eisa's recent work includes the rock musical Passing Strange at the Public Theater, the films Robot Stories, Apparition of the Eternal Church, Happenstance, Confess, and The Architect, television appearances on The Wire and Law and Order, as well as numerous theatre credits in New York, regional theatres, development centers, and in her own plays.
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