POWERHOUSE 2018 | READINGS FESTIVAL 1
JUNE 22 | 8pm
THE PAIN OF MY BELLIGERENCE
by Halley Feiffer
directed by Trip Cullman
featuring Michael Esper, Halley Feiffer,
Amaya Press, Vanessa Kai
Twenty-something and brilliant, Cat is a journalist at the top of her game: tack-sharp and ambitious, and rapidly establishing her place in the field. Until she meets Guy – magnetic, devilishly charming, and married -- and the attrition begins. Charting their spiky relationship over twelve years, following a rapidly changing America, Halley Feiffer’s harrowing comedy sheds light on how we perpetuate our roles within a patriarchal culture, and the promise of a new paradigm.
JUNE 23 | 2pm
LICK O'THE KNIFE
by Jackie Roberts
directed by Kent Gash
featuring McKinley Belcher III, Carson Elrod, Walker Jones, JD Mollison, Christina Pumeriega, Carolyn Michelle Smith
Set in 1837 Paris, this wild comedy revolves around the relationship between Alexandre Pushkin and Alexander Dumas (pére), whose drinking, eating, “poeming” and love-making end in a disastrous duel in this Black swashbuckler. Both were swordsmen for their monarchs and with their poetic pens, and (perhaps most importantly to them) in the bedrooms of their dozens of mistresses. And they both considered themselves Black thanks to their parents’ heritage, a key part of their relationship rarely acknowledged in popular culture.
JUNE 23 | 8pm
ON THAT DAY IN AMSTERDAM
by Clarence Coo
directed by Kareem Fahmy
featuring Frankie J. Alvarez, Julian Cihi,
James Cusati-Moyer, Rocky Vega, Justin Walker White
Two young men, an American backpacker and a Syrian refugee, meet in a gay club in Amsterdam and spend the next day together knowing their paths will never cross again. As they visit the former homes of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Anne Frank, they discover the meaning of love, art, and escape in the context of Europe’s current migrant crisis.
JUNE 24 | 2pm
#untitled
by rupi kaur
directed by Leah C. Gardiner
featuring Dahlia Azama, Mahira Kakkar, Kineta Kunutu, Nadine Malouf, Susannah Perkins
#1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator, rupi kaur, explores a theatrical adaptation of her debut collection of poetry and prose, milk and honey, which received international acclaim and has been translated into over 30 languages. milk and honey takes readers through a journey of the most bitter moments in life and finds sweetness in them because there is sweetness everywhere if you are just willing to look.
JUNE 24 | 5pm
THE HOLE
by Sarah Gancher
directed by Danya Taymor
featuring Betsy Aidem, Brittany Allen, Heidi Armbruster, Marc Bovino, James Faunce, Joel Marsh Garland,
Andy Grotelueschen
The Hole (n): In a morning zoo radio show, the killjoy woman whose job is to tell the bad-boy comedians “come on you guys!” or “you’re so bad!” As the comedians who coined the term describe it: “the hole is where comedy goes to die.”
When struggling comedian Rocky (short for Roxanne) joins her local morning zoo radio show, the station’s reigning bad boy shock jock won’t let her be funny—he insists on making her the show’s “hole.” So, Rocky takes over the show with methods initially admirable, but increasingly brutal and destructive. A play about feminism, revolution, and who is allowed to be at the center of our stories, from the writer of The Lucky Ones and Hundred Days, and former New York Stage and Film Founders’ Award Recipient.
POWERHOUSE 2018 | READINGS FESTIVAL 2
JULY 20 | 8pm
THE NORTH STAR
by Donja R. Love
directed by Malika Oyetimein
featuring Khris Davis, Marchant Davis, Clinton Lowe, J. Alphonse Nicholson, Armand Schultz, Brennie Tellu, Renika Williams
Somewhere in North Philly the North Star shines bright. It lights the way for North, a Shakespearean-like rapper in his hood. But right after he lands a record deal his father is released from prison and he becomes forced to see the man that he always was.
JULY 21 | 12pm
THE DIZZINESS OF FREEDOM
by Stephen Nathan
directed by Daniella Topol
featuring Susannah Hoffman, David Patrick Kelly, J.D. Mollison
Roger is the last remaining tenant of an old apartment building scheduled for demolition to make way for a new shopping mall. At 75 and with a history of left-wing social activism, Roger has no intention of giving the corporate interests the satisfaction of moving without a fight – his last stand. A young attorney, Annie, shows up charged with the task of evicting Roger. What should be easy for Annie becomes a test of wills and integrity, which uncovers both of their fears and their gaping generational divide. But this battle also shows them their ability to to transcend their differences and ultimately what binds even the most intransigent pair combatants.
JULY 21 | 5pm
THE PURISTS
by Dan McCabe
directed by Billy Porter
featuring Matthew J. Harris, Tedra Milan, Morocco Omari, Larry Pine, Rosanny Zayas
A former rapper, a DJ, and a musical theatre fanatic have become unlikely stoop buddies in Sunnyside, Queens. When their friendly riffing about race, sexuality and music in America turns personal – and with the arrival of two up-and-coming female emcees – the trio must confront the changes to their purist ideals and question what it means to be authentic.
JULY 22 | 5pm
MELISSA R. AND DOROTHY SUE
book by Geoffrey Nauffts
music and lyrics by Jonatha Brooke
directed by Sheryl Kaller
featuring Noah Bean, Carla Duren, Kate Jennings Grant, Christopher Hanke, Colin Hanlon, Katie Lee Hill, Sarah Kapner, Leslie Kritzer, Austin Ku, Judy Kuhn, Jared Loftin, Phoebe Strole, Jordan Tyson, Emily Walton
When two women learn they have been living in each other's lives for the past forty years -- their journey towards who it is they were supposed to have been -- leads them to some old familiar and new and unexpected places.
