10 year old Jabari loves to paint. With his Forever President Barack Obama as a guide, Jabari escapes the violent reality of an encounter with the police through his colorful paintings where he meets children from the past who teach him how to be fearless. He then meets his hero, Barack Obama, as a 6 year old boy on the eve of the assassination of MLK, Jr. Will Jabari be able to instill in young Barack the lessons he’s learned and therefore ensure that Barack will have the necessary tools to become president? Will he learn to take these lessons back into his own life and heal his community? JABARI DREAMS OF FREEDOM is a 45 minute dream, a piece for ages 8 and up, using rap, freedom songs, hip hop dance, history, and humor to tell the story of a young Black boy from the South Side of Chicago who is afraid to leave the house, but learns to dream of freedom.
Genre: BIPOC
Foxes
Foxes follows Daniel, a young black man trying to keep up with his life in London’s Caribbean community while balancing his own goals with his family’s expectations. When his relationship with best friend Leon brings an unexpected change it creates turmoil, bringing a taboo into his family home that has the power to tear the closest and most loving relationships apart. A deeply moving and complex story of family, community, and sexual identity.
Shortlisted for the 2018 Alfred Fagon Award, Dexter Flanders’s debut play Foxes explores masculinity and identity within London’s Caribbean community and Black street culture.
Les Deux Noirs
Set in the legendary Parisian café Les Deux Magots in 1953, LES DEUX NOIRS reimagines the meeting between Native Son author Richard Wright and essayist/activist James Baldwin. It explores the tension between Baldwin’s searing critiques of Native Son and Wright’s unbridled indignation in response—a confrontation between two mighty African-American artists, with echoes of a present-day rap battle.
The Great Jheri Curl Debate
Veralynn Jackson knows hair, her neighborhood, and she also knows that the invention of the Jheri Curl marks the end of the world… or at least a career shift. When she takes a job in Mr. Kim’s Korean-owned Black beauty supply store, she’s in her element, until the posters start talking to her. For Mr. Kim, closed off by what he’s left behind to be in the U.S., the last thing he wants is this nosy new employee prodding him to expose old wounds. Their eventual friendship opens a door for each of them to reclaim their lost art.
A Hit Dog Will Holler
When racism and oppression manifest in a scary, physical form, a social media influencer and a boots-on-the-ground activist form a complex bond of friendship to help each other survive. The play explores the effects of a never-ending barrage of trauma on the women who are continually looked at to lead a movement of resistance and change. What happens when there’s no more outside space for the growing monster that is American racism?
Eight Tales of Pedro
EIGHT TALES OF PEDRO begins in 17th century Mexico, as Pedro and his companion travel from a small port town into the fabled Veracruz, telling stories while following Pedro’s one true love. Meanwhile, in the present day, in a van full of Mexican immigrants, Peter crosses a border into an unfamiliar country, while his companions tell him stories to chase away his fears. The two storytellers risk everything as their lives and plots intertwine.
The Far Country
In the wake of the Chinese Exclusion Act, an unlikely family carries invented biographies and poems of longing on an arduous journey from rural Taishan to Angel Island Detention Center, in hopes of landing in San Francisco. Intimate and epic, THE FAR COUNTRY weighs the true cost of selling the past for the hope of a brighter future.
Berta, Berta
After committing an unforgivable crime, Leroy is granted one final wish: a chance to make amends with his long-lost lover, Berta. Their reunion swells from a quarrelsome conjuring of the past to an impassioned plot to escape their impending fate.
Black Super Hero Magic Mama
Sabrina Jackson cannot cope with the death of her son by a White cop. Rather than herald the Black Lives Matter movement, Sabrina retreats inward, living out a comic book superhero fantasy. Will Sabrina stay in this dream world or return to reality and mourn her loss?
Bina’s Six Apples
Bina’s family grows the finest apples in all of Korea. But when war forces her to flee her home, Bina is alone in the world with just six precious apples to her name. Can these meager possessions help her find her family? Join Bina on her spirited journey that ranges from the heartbreaking to the humorous. Encountering new challenges at every turn, Bina is forced to rely upon her apples and their important legacy as she begins to discover the power of her own resilience. Often mesmerizing, always heartwarming, Bina will discover that she’s not the only one on a difficult quest for a place to call home.