Looking for Liberty: The Lessons of the Civil Rights/Black Power Movements and How We Pick Up Where We Left Off
Join us at New York Theatre Workshop's 4th Street Theatre, Monday, July 27th at 7pm for an evening of performance and a panel discussion to discuss the state of America's battle with race and strategies for healing.
The evening will begin with a performance of Liberty City inspired by April’s childhood in 1970s Miami and her family’s journey through the end of the Black Power movement culminating in Miami's 1981 Race Riots.
The panel will be moderated by Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin, professor of English and comparative literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, where she has served as director of the Institute for Research in African American studies.
In addition to editing several collections of letters and essays she is the author of Who Set You Flowin’: The African American Migration Narrative(Oxford, 1995), If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press, 2001) and Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever(Thomas Dunne, 2008). She is also the editor of Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus (Knopf, 1999) co-editor, with Cheryl Fish, of Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African American Travel Writing (Beacon, 1998) and co-editor with Brent Edwards and Robert O’Meally of Uptown Conversations: The New Jazz Studies(Columbia University Press, 2004). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, Callaloo, and African American Review, and she is also a frequent commentator on WNPR’s News & Notes.
Farah received her B.A. from Harvard (1985) and Ph.D.from Yale (1992). Professor Griffin’s major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, history and politics. The recipient of numerous honors and awards for her teaching and scholarship, in 2006-2007 Professor Griffin was a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
The panel consists of artists who use their creative content in political ways. Whether, it's by writing political plays, teaching workshops on civil rights organizing, leveling the playing field by developing interactive curriculum on white priviledge and how white and black activists can organize effectively to take on structural racism.
Panelists include: Actor/Writer/Activist, Mia Anderson
Actor/Writer/Producer, Jessica Blank (Exonerated)
Actor/Writer/Activist Chelsea Gregory
Actor/Writer/Producer April Yvette Thompson
Writer/Producer/Acitivist Andrea Ciannavei (Project Coordinator)
PANELIST BIOS
APRIL YVETTE THOMPSON
April Yvette Thompson is a Tony-winning producer, writer, actor working across media developing work that is both political and personal. Telling the untold stories and how folks move from the personal to the political when their values are challenged. April's theatre credits include: The Clybourne Park, Exonerated, Medea, Macbeth, Lear, Raisin in the Sun, From the Mississippi Delta, etc April’s Film/TV credits include The Exonerated, Accidental Husband, Blue Caprice, Backwards, Blue Bloods, Gotham, Babylon Fields, “Law & Order” & “Third Watch, etc.m As SimonSays Entertainment Director of Development, April produces award-winning Sundance indie addressing issues from the legacy of Civil Rights attorneys and black panthers in Night Catches Us, the plight of fatherless black boys in Blue Caprice, the struggle of a Latina transgendered teen in Gun Hill Road to an African immigrant woman's battle to find her place in America in Mother of George. In the broadway producing world, April was on the Tony-winning producing team of the longest-running Broadway production of Porgy & Bess (Tony for Best Musical Revival) starring Audra MacDonald (Best Actress Tony) and the all black version of A Streetcar Named Desire. As a playwright, April is developing her second play in The Miami Trilogy, Good Bread Alley, with support from NYSF, NYTW, Arsht. Her first play, Liberty City was an off Broadway hit at New York Theatre Workshop (creators of Rent, Once the Musical) and was nominated for Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Lortel & AUDELCO awards Liberty City has toured the United States. April writers stories of folks from the diaspora becoming politicized by epic events that transform their lives and force them to take a stand.
Education: BA, Vassar College; MFA, Rutgers University AprilYvetteThompson.com and SimonSaysEntertainment.com
CHELSEA GREGORY
Chelsea Gregory is a writer, performer, choreographer and cultural organizer. She recently toured with Cornerstone Theater Company’s “California: The Tempest,” a community-engaged theater project addressing immigration reform, food equity and the prison industry. Other recent performances include Guillermo Goméz-Peña’s “Mapa Corpo” and Andrea Thome's "Necklace of the Dove," theatrical explorations of identity, immigration and marginalization. She was also a collaborator on “Body Stories,” a piece exploring how oppression impacts the body, and a featured keynote at the ADTA Conference. More recent collaborations include Working Theater's "5 Boroughs/1 City," and PopUP Theatrics' "Broken City: Harlem," both exploring the impact of gentrification on NYC. She also directed the street theater initiative for Berkeley VS Big Soda’s 2014 campaign, the first soda tax measure passed in the US. Her original work has been presented at Culture Project, LaMama ETC, The Living Theater and Brooklyn Arts Exchange in NYC; LA Women’s Theater Festival; La Pena Cultural Center in the Bay Area; and 7 Stages in Atlanta. Her solo play "The 6 Project" explores how racial identity shapes our perspective, based on interviews she conducted around the Jena 6 Case. 6 Project performances, workshops and dialogues in 12 US cities have engaged over 3000 people in the work of racial healing. She has worked as an organizer and educator around racial justice for over 15 years, and wrote a chapter for the anthology “Occupying Privilege” on performance as a vehicle for racial healing.
MIA Y. ANDERSON
Mia Y. Anderson is an actor, director and writer. She was the founder , director and producer of the award -winning Drag Kings, Sluts & Goddesses a queer women of color cabaret troupe which featured non-professional artists and tackled issues of homophobia, racism, sexism, body images & ageism in an variety format. Performers ranged from college students, academics to formerly incarcerated to work together to create performance. It was profiled in national and international magazines. She is featured in several anthologies including "Pinned Down By Pronouns "& "Getting Bi" She has been involved in organizing since her teens working for pro-choice rights, socio-economic justice, racial politics,gender equality and environmental awareness. She recently was a panelist at the Left Forum on #blacklivesmatter. You can check out her writing on her blog www.miayandersonchannel.com.
JESSICA BLANK
Jessica Blank is an actor, writer and director. With Erik Jensen, she is author of THE EXONERATED, a play based on interviews they conducted with over 40 wrongly convicted death row inmates (Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Ovation Awards; also awards from Amnesty International, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Death Penalty Focus). THE EXONERATED has been seen by Supreme Court Justices, Attorneys General, and judges across the country, and Governor George Ryan of Illinois has cited THE EXONERATED as a contributing factor in his decision to commute the sentences of over 150 inmates on Illinois death row. It was made into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, and "Living Justice," their book about the criminal justice system and the making of THE EXONERATED, was published in 2005. Their documentary play AFTERMATH, based on interviews with Iraqi civilian refugees in Jordan (NYTW, 2009) was nominated for two Drama League Awards. They are at work on a new politically-oriented documentary play in collaboration with musician Steve Earle. Their play HOW TO BE A ROCK CRITIC completed a sold-out run at the Kirk Douglas Theater in June. With April Yvette Thompson, Jessica co-wrote LIBERTY CITY (NYTW 2008) which was nominated for Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards. TV writing work includes THE NEGOTIATOR for Gaumont TV (EP Tom Fontana); TV development includes Fox TV Studios, 20th Century TV, Virgin Produced. TV acting work includes MADE IN JERSEY, BLUE BLOODS, ELEMENTARY, THE FOLLOWING, THE MENTALIST, BORED TO DEATH, RESCUE ME, LAW AND ORDER: CI, THE BRONX IS BURNING, more; film includes THE NAMESAKE and several indies including CREATIVE CONTROL (Grand Jury Prize, SXSW 2015).
ANDREA CIANNAVEI (PROJECT COORDINATOR)
Andrea Ciannavei is a playwright, TV writer, producer and political activist. Graduate of The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Playwriting Fellowship in 2010. Plays include The Winstons (commissioned by Hangar Theater), and Pretty Chin Up which received a development production at LAByrinth Theater Company (Artistic Directors: Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) at The Public Theater. TV: American Odyssey (NBC Universal); Borgia (Canal Plus) and Copper (BBC America). Publications: Alternet and Flurt Magazine. Since 2008, Andrea has produced free writing workshops for wounded veterans and their family caregivers, sponsored by the Writers’ Guild Initiative and in partnership with Wounded Warrior Project. In 2011, Andrea traveled to10 countries across 3 continents to conduct interviews and research on human trafficking, sex slavery, gender violence and socio-political and economic issues that impact women. She returned to the US and became heavily involved in social and political activism and is a co-founder of InterOccupy, Occupy Sandy, and the Million Hoodies for Trayvon Martin movement. She also works with The Yes Men as a content writer among various projects that seek to affect social, political and economic change.
There is very limited seating, please click here to RSVP now!
Liberty City, a multi-character solo play performed by April Yvette Thompson, directed by Jessica Blank, is inspired by April’s childhood in 1970s Miami and her family’s journey through the end of the Black Power movement. Co-written by April Yvette Thompson and Jessica Blank (The Exonerated), it is the story of April’s Miami: a place where colonized people from throughout the African diaspora have gathered, intermarried, bought homes, raised families, vote and still see themselves as immigrants. a place where the big city and the islands rub up against each other, where some immigrants wrestle their way up into the corridors of power while others continue to struggle, where histories and countries coalesce and intermingle to make a new American story.
Enter April Yvette Thompson, the daughter of a Bahamian and Cuban father and an African American mother, but not just any old Afro-Cuban Caribbean-American mix. Her parents were children of the sixties in every way: young militants, free thinkers, movement people and sometimes just plain poor. April spent her days on scholarship as the only black girl at Miami's most exclusive prep school and her nights and mornings in liberty city, the site of Miami's infamous 1980s riots. As the hope of the sixties and seventies gave way to the disintegration and violence of the eighties, April's family struggled to survive and stay together, and April learned to pick up the pieces where her parents left off.
April 's story is the story of the children of children of the sixties who were not quite all American. It's a story of a sprawling family marked by tragedy and bound by fierce love, a history cross-pollinated by six different cultures, a patchwork of old feuds and surprising alliances. It is the story of her Miami: a place shaped by immigrants and islands, by intermarriage and rebellion, by history and struggle and love.
The evening will begin with a performance of Liberty City inspired by April’s childhood in 1970s Miami and her family’s journey through the end of the Black Power movement culminating in Miami's 1981 Race Riots.
The panel will be moderated by Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin, professor of English and comparative literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, where she has served as director of the Institute for Research in African American studies.
In addition to editing several collections of letters and essays she is the author of Who Set You Flowin’: The African American Migration Narrative(Oxford, 1995), If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press, 2001) and Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever(Thomas Dunne, 2008). She is also the editor of Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Addie Brown and Rebecca Primus (Knopf, 1999) co-editor, with Cheryl Fish, of Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African American Travel Writing (Beacon, 1998) and co-editor with Brent Edwards and Robert O’Meally of Uptown Conversations: The New Jazz Studies(Columbia University Press, 2004). Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, Harper’s Bazaar, Callaloo, and African American Review, and she is also a frequent commentator on WNPR’s News & Notes.
Farah received her B.A. from Harvard (1985) and Ph.D.from Yale (1992). Professor Griffin’s major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, history and politics. The recipient of numerous honors and awards for her teaching and scholarship, in 2006-2007 Professor Griffin was a fellow at the New York Public Library Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
The panel consists of artists who use their creative content in political ways. Whether, it's by writing political plays, teaching workshops on civil rights organizing, leveling the playing field by developing interactive curriculum on white priviledge and how white and black activists can organize effectively to take on structural racism.
Panelists include: Actor/Writer/Activist, Mia Anderson
Actor/Writer/Producer, Jessica Blank (Exonerated)
Actor/Writer/Activist Chelsea Gregory
Actor/Writer/Producer April Yvette Thompson
Writer/Producer/Acitivist Andrea Ciannavei (Project Coordinator)
PANELIST BIOS
APRIL YVETTE THOMPSON
April Yvette Thompson is a Tony-winning producer, writer, actor working across media developing work that is both political and personal. Telling the untold stories and how folks move from the personal to the political when their values are challenged. April's theatre credits include: The Clybourne Park, Exonerated, Medea, Macbeth, Lear, Raisin in the Sun, From the Mississippi Delta, etc April’s Film/TV credits include The Exonerated, Accidental Husband, Blue Caprice, Backwards, Blue Bloods, Gotham, Babylon Fields, “Law & Order” & “Third Watch, etc.m As SimonSays Entertainment Director of Development, April produces award-winning Sundance indie addressing issues from the legacy of Civil Rights attorneys and black panthers in Night Catches Us, the plight of fatherless black boys in Blue Caprice, the struggle of a Latina transgendered teen in Gun Hill Road to an African immigrant woman's battle to find her place in America in Mother of George. In the broadway producing world, April was on the Tony-winning producing team of the longest-running Broadway production of Porgy & Bess (Tony for Best Musical Revival) starring Audra MacDonald (Best Actress Tony) and the all black version of A Streetcar Named Desire. As a playwright, April is developing her second play in The Miami Trilogy, Good Bread Alley, with support from NYSF, NYTW, Arsht. Her first play, Liberty City was an off Broadway hit at New York Theatre Workshop (creators of Rent, Once the Musical) and was nominated for Drama Desk, Outer Critics, Lortel & AUDELCO awards Liberty City has toured the United States. April writers stories of folks from the diaspora becoming politicized by epic events that transform their lives and force them to take a stand.
Education: BA, Vassar College; MFA, Rutgers University AprilYvetteThompson.com and SimonSaysEntertainment.com
CHELSEA GREGORY
Chelsea Gregory is a writer, performer, choreographer and cultural organizer. She recently toured with Cornerstone Theater Company’s “California: The Tempest,” a community-engaged theater project addressing immigration reform, food equity and the prison industry. Other recent performances include Guillermo Goméz-Peña’s “Mapa Corpo” and Andrea Thome's "Necklace of the Dove," theatrical explorations of identity, immigration and marginalization. She was also a collaborator on “Body Stories,” a piece exploring how oppression impacts the body, and a featured keynote at the ADTA Conference. More recent collaborations include Working Theater's "5 Boroughs/1 City," and PopUP Theatrics' "Broken City: Harlem," both exploring the impact of gentrification on NYC. She also directed the street theater initiative for Berkeley VS Big Soda’s 2014 campaign, the first soda tax measure passed in the US. Her original work has been presented at Culture Project, LaMama ETC, The Living Theater and Brooklyn Arts Exchange in NYC; LA Women’s Theater Festival; La Pena Cultural Center in the Bay Area; and 7 Stages in Atlanta. Her solo play "The 6 Project" explores how racial identity shapes our perspective, based on interviews she conducted around the Jena 6 Case. 6 Project performances, workshops and dialogues in 12 US cities have engaged over 3000 people in the work of racial healing. She has worked as an organizer and educator around racial justice for over 15 years, and wrote a chapter for the anthology “Occupying Privilege” on performance as a vehicle for racial healing.
MIA Y. ANDERSON
Mia Y. Anderson is an actor, director and writer. She was the founder , director and producer of the award -winning Drag Kings, Sluts & Goddesses a queer women of color cabaret troupe which featured non-professional artists and tackled issues of homophobia, racism, sexism, body images & ageism in an variety format. Performers ranged from college students, academics to formerly incarcerated to work together to create performance. It was profiled in national and international magazines. She is featured in several anthologies including "Pinned Down By Pronouns "& "Getting Bi" She has been involved in organizing since her teens working for pro-choice rights, socio-economic justice, racial politics,gender equality and environmental awareness. She recently was a panelist at the Left Forum on #blacklivesmatter. You can check out her writing on her blog www.miayandersonchannel.com.
JESSICA BLANK
Jessica Blank is an actor, writer and director. With Erik Jensen, she is author of THE EXONERATED, a play based on interviews they conducted with over 40 wrongly convicted death row inmates (Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, Ovation Awards; also awards from Amnesty International, the American Bar Association, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, Death Penalty Focus). THE EXONERATED has been seen by Supreme Court Justices, Attorneys General, and judges across the country, and Governor George Ryan of Illinois has cited THE EXONERATED as a contributing factor in his decision to commute the sentences of over 150 inmates on Illinois death row. It was made into a film starring Susan Sarandon and Danny Glover, and "Living Justice," their book about the criminal justice system and the making of THE EXONERATED, was published in 2005. Their documentary play AFTERMATH, based on interviews with Iraqi civilian refugees in Jordan (NYTW, 2009) was nominated for two Drama League Awards. They are at work on a new politically-oriented documentary play in collaboration with musician Steve Earle. Their play HOW TO BE A ROCK CRITIC completed a sold-out run at the Kirk Douglas Theater in June. With April Yvette Thompson, Jessica co-wrote LIBERTY CITY (NYTW 2008) which was nominated for Lucille Lortel, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards. TV writing work includes THE NEGOTIATOR for Gaumont TV (EP Tom Fontana); TV development includes Fox TV Studios, 20th Century TV, Virgin Produced. TV acting work includes MADE IN JERSEY, BLUE BLOODS, ELEMENTARY, THE FOLLOWING, THE MENTALIST, BORED TO DEATH, RESCUE ME, LAW AND ORDER: CI, THE BRONX IS BURNING, more; film includes THE NAMESAKE and several indies including CREATIVE CONTROL (Grand Jury Prize, SXSW 2015).
ANDREA CIANNAVEI (PROJECT COORDINATOR)
Andrea Ciannavei is a playwright, TV writer, producer and political activist. Graduate of The Juilliard School’s Lila Acheson Playwriting Fellowship in 2010. Plays include The Winstons (commissioned by Hangar Theater), and Pretty Chin Up which received a development production at LAByrinth Theater Company (Artistic Directors: Philip Seymour Hoffman and John Ortiz) at The Public Theater. TV: American Odyssey (NBC Universal); Borgia (Canal Plus) and Copper (BBC America). Publications: Alternet and Flurt Magazine. Since 2008, Andrea has produced free writing workshops for wounded veterans and their family caregivers, sponsored by the Writers’ Guild Initiative and in partnership with Wounded Warrior Project. In 2011, Andrea traveled to10 countries across 3 continents to conduct interviews and research on human trafficking, sex slavery, gender violence and socio-political and economic issues that impact women. She returned to the US and became heavily involved in social and political activism and is a co-founder of InterOccupy, Occupy Sandy, and the Million Hoodies for Trayvon Martin movement. She also works with The Yes Men as a content writer among various projects that seek to affect social, political and economic change.
There is very limited seating, please click here to RSVP now!
Liberty City, a multi-character solo play performed by April Yvette Thompson, directed by Jessica Blank, is inspired by April’s childhood in 1970s Miami and her family’s journey through the end of the Black Power movement. Co-written by April Yvette Thompson and Jessica Blank (The Exonerated), it is the story of April’s Miami: a place where colonized people from throughout the African diaspora have gathered, intermarried, bought homes, raised families, vote and still see themselves as immigrants. a place where the big city and the islands rub up against each other, where some immigrants wrestle their way up into the corridors of power while others continue to struggle, where histories and countries coalesce and intermingle to make a new American story.
Enter April Yvette Thompson, the daughter of a Bahamian and Cuban father and an African American mother, but not just any old Afro-Cuban Caribbean-American mix. Her parents were children of the sixties in every way: young militants, free thinkers, movement people and sometimes just plain poor. April spent her days on scholarship as the only black girl at Miami's most exclusive prep school and her nights and mornings in liberty city, the site of Miami's infamous 1980s riots. As the hope of the sixties and seventies gave way to the disintegration and violence of the eighties, April's family struggled to survive and stay together, and April learned to pick up the pieces where her parents left off.
April 's story is the story of the children of children of the sixties who were not quite all American. It's a story of a sprawling family marked by tragedy and bound by fierce love, a history cross-pollinated by six different cultures, a patchwork of old feuds and surprising alliances. It is the story of her Miami: a place shaped by immigrants and islands, by intermarriage and rebellion, by history and struggle and love.
Liberty City, an off Broadway hit at New York Theatre Workshop (creators of Rent, Once the Musical) received a Lucille Lortel Award nomination for 'Best Solo play'. April was nominated for 'Best Solo Performance' by Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and AUDELCO awards. Liberty City has been touring since it's 2008 premiere. Stay tuned for a Chicago premiere in 2015.