The Fire This Time Festival - 7 Short Plays
August 6, 2020 1:08 PM Subscribe
AllArts is streaming several short plays from The Fire This Time Festival, which provides a platform for early career playwrights of African and African American descent. Plays should be available through August 8 (or later?); they may not be available in all parts of the world, but the pages do include transcripts.
The plays were filmed at the Kraine Theater in early 2020.
Also available at the PBS site.
Works include:
If Men Were Flowers
"If Men Were Flowers" is playwright Jay Mazyck's meditation on a different, softer side of masculinity. Three vibrant flowers notice their landscape is changing and look to Dalia, who tends to them, for answers to this threat to their livelihood. Filmed at the Fire This Time Festival at The Kraine Theater.
Maya and Rivers
Playwright Tyler English-Beckwith explores what people are willing to risk in the hopes of finding new life in her play, "Maya and Rivers." The two lovebirds escape from their dying home-planet for a final rendezvous on the moon.
Wish I Could P. (Pay It No Mind)
Marsha P. Johnson shepherds the lost back home in this new work by playwright Mario (Mars) Wolfe. Under a streetlamp on a New York City night, Ariel and Jamil face difficult news about their future. Wolfe evokes the comforting language of fairy godmothers and Disney princesses as Ariel navigates her way.
Antepartum
In this new work by Deneen Reynolds-Knott, two pregnant women find themselves paired together in the antepartum unit of a hospital. Faced with the broken expectations of their birth plans, the women find respite and understanding as they realize they are not alone in their experience.
Assumed Positions
Playwright Natyna Bean invites us to question how well we really know the ones we love in this new work. When Naya returns home from abroad after two years she is startled to discover new information about her partner that calls into question the very foundation of their relationship.
One Morning Soon
In One Morning Soon, playwright Niccolo Aeed uses the killing of a Messiah as a springboard to explore how a religion can twist and change from its roots. Told mostly through letters (inspired by the epistles in the New Testament) this work asks us to consider what it means to be saved.
Panopticon
Outside a bodega in Bed-Stuy, two middle-aged men reflect on the changes they’ve witnessed in their neighborhood. How can they keep their perspective when everything seems to be changing around them? And whatever happened to those 25 cent bags of chips the bodega used to carry?
Or perhaps you'd prefer the descriptions from the festival's website.
Works include:
If Men Were Flowers
"If Men Were Flowers" is playwright Jay Mazyck's meditation on a different, softer side of masculinity. Three vibrant flowers notice their landscape is changing and look to Dalia, who tends to them, for answers to this threat to their livelihood. Filmed at the Fire This Time Festival at The Kraine Theater.
Maya and Rivers
Playwright Tyler English-Beckwith explores what people are willing to risk in the hopes of finding new life in her play, "Maya and Rivers." The two lovebirds escape from their dying home-planet for a final rendezvous on the moon.
Wish I Could P. (Pay It No Mind)
Marsha P. Johnson shepherds the lost back home in this new work by playwright Mario (Mars) Wolfe. Under a streetlamp on a New York City night, Ariel and Jamil face difficult news about their future. Wolfe evokes the comforting language of fairy godmothers and Disney princesses as Ariel navigates her way.
Antepartum
In this new work by Deneen Reynolds-Knott, two pregnant women find themselves paired together in the antepartum unit of a hospital. Faced with the broken expectations of their birth plans, the women find respite and understanding as they realize they are not alone in their experience.
Assumed Positions
Playwright Natyna Bean invites us to question how well we really know the ones we love in this new work. When Naya returns home from abroad after two years she is startled to discover new information about her partner that calls into question the very foundation of their relationship.
One Morning Soon
In One Morning Soon, playwright Niccolo Aeed uses the killing of a Messiah as a springboard to explore how a religion can twist and change from its roots. Told mostly through letters (inspired by the epistles in the New Testament) this work asks us to consider what it means to be saved.
Panopticon
Outside a bodega in Bed-Stuy, two middle-aged men reflect on the changes they’ve witnessed in their neighborhood. How can they keep their perspective when everything seems to be changing around them? And whatever happened to those 25 cent bags of chips the bodega used to carry?
Or perhaps you'd prefer the descriptions from the festival's website.
Adridne, if you haven't found them already, be sure to check out this Free Shakespeare in the Park production of Much Ado About Nothing, and the Globe to Globe series of Shakespeare by actors from around the world.
posted by kristi at 9:26 AM on August 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by kristi at 9:26 AM on August 7, 2020 [2 favorites]
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I've been looking for more filmed versions of plays by people of color to use in my classes! This is great!
Thank you for posting!
posted by Adridne at 8:13 AM on August 7, 2020