A new musical that follows the journey of a teenage boy who escapes his fraught home in search of a place to belong. Lost and alone in New York City he discovers a restless tribe of young people defying a world that refuses to let them be themselves. Set in and around a makeshift shelter, this fierce and funny contemporary musical upends our perceptions of family and celebrates community in the most unlikely of places.
Directed by Saheem Ali. Arrangement and Orchestration by Avi Amon. Choreography by Jennifer Harrison Newman.
The work-in-progress showing will be followed by a moderated artist-audience dialogue.
Artist Bio:
Phillip Howze is a playwright whose work includes abominable, Tiny Boyfriend and all of what you love and none of what you hate. A recent graduate of Yale School of Drama, his plays have been developed at The Bushwick Starr, Dixon Place, Theater Masters National MFA Playwrights Festival, Playwrights Foundation, Bay Area Playwrights Festival and Yale Cabaret. He is a 2015 Fellow of the Sundance Institute Theater Lab and the 2015-16 Artist Fellow at Lincoln Center Education. Prior to attending graduate school, he worked in advocacy at the Open Society Foundations where he managed grant projects that intersect arts, culture, and education across Southeast Asia. He worked as an educator at the US Embassy’s cultural center in Rangoon, Burma from 2005–2007. He is the recipient of the Stephen B. Timbers Scholarship at Yale. BA: NYU.
Saheem Ali was most recently the Associate Director on The Tempest (Shakespeare in the Park). Directing credits: The Erlkings (Theater Row), Farhad (Inner Voices), Vital Signs (Riant Theatre),Marisol (Barnard College), The Wild Party (Columbia University), Romeo & Juliet (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company), Spring Awakening (Northeastern University). Workshops: Our Lady of Koinange Street (PEN World Voices), Facing Our Truths (Public Theater), Nollywood Dreams (Soho Rep and National Black Theater), Goddess (O’Neill Musical Theater Conference), Tsunami (PEN). Assistant Directing: A Free Man of Color (Lincoln Center),The Normal Heart (The Golden), Angels in America (Signature). Shubert Fellow, New York Theatre Workshop Directing Fellow, SDCF Gielgud Directing Fellow. MFA Columbia University.
Avi Amon writes music and creates soundscapes for theatre, film, and dance. With collaborator and pal, Julia Gytri, Avi wrote The White City (O’Neill 2014 National Music Theatre Conference, Discovery New Musical Theater Festival at Ball State University, finalist for the 2015 Richard Rogers Award) and Step on a Crack (featured in Prospect Theater’s Seventh Annual Music Theater Lab). The team is working on a new show, Salonika, which is a fusion of obscure fairy tales paralleled with the extermination of the Ladino-speaking Jewish community of Salonika, Greece. In addition to being an active performer in New York, Avi is a volunteer composer for the 52nd Street Project, a member of the Institute for Collaborative Theater Making with Target Margin Theater, and an alumnus of the Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He lives in Brooklyn where he tends to his immense plant collection and builds furniture for friends.
Jennifer Harrison Newman, a New York based dance and theatre artist, has worked with Franco Dragone, Julie Taymor, Donald Byrd, David Rousseve, Ronald K. Brown, Michael Jackson, The Radio City Rockettes, and has performed on Broadway in Saturday Night Fever and Disney’s The Lion King. As a director and choreographer her theatre work includes: Three Women, by Patterson, Loring, and Zainabu; Bull Rusher, by Eisa Davis; Woman Bomb, by Ivana Sajko; and October in the Chair, adapted from short stories by Neil Gaiman. Jennifer studied at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, The American Dance Festival, and has been an artist in residence at The Field, Mabou Mines, Baryshnikov Arts Center, and 651 Arts, and Sisters Academy. As a teaching artist, Jennifer has taught workshops across the United States as well as in Sweden, South Africa, China, and Mexico. Her class focuses on classical and modern technique with an emphasis on performance and expression with a specialization in helping students to create personal work inspired by individual experiences. She holds a BA in Dance from UCLA, an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and is currently on faculty at Central Connecticut State University.
BRIClab is a commissioning and residency development program for both emerging and established local artists to explore and expand the possibilities of their work in music, dance, theater and multi-disciplinary performance.
Residency: September 28 – October 3
Venue Information:
The intimate, flexible studio space within BRIC House is dedicated to emerging and mid-career artists, with an audience capacity of 50-75 for rehearsals and performances in a workshop setting.
Beginning Nov. 1, 2022, attendees of any BRIC House programming will no longer have to show proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter the building. Masks are encouraged but not required in all BRIC operated spaces. If you have questions regarding this protocol, please email Safety@bricartsmedia.org