As we seek to celebrate and honor Black History Month, which of course, we actually celebrate all year long, we want to spotlight the incredible amount of black artists featured this theatre season in NYC. We urge everyone to see the following plays and musicals being produced this season that feature hugely talented black playwrights, actors directors, and designers, and speak to the black experience in America.
Tambo & Bones
Running Jan 19th-Feb 27th, 2022 @ Playwrights Horizons
By Dave Harris
Directed by Taylor Reynolds
Tambo and Bones are two friends trapped in a minstrel show looking for themselves. The play follows their journey as they escape this life and use their experiences to uplift them in the world through music and hip-hop. This dark comedy roasts America’s racist past and present, and looks towards a post-racial future.
On Sugarland
Running February 5th-March 20th, 2022 @ NYTW
By Alesha Harris
Directed by Whitney White
“On Sugarland” is a play about ritual and healing in a black community that is in a perpetual war with the world around it. The play combines “interactive ritual performance with absurdist parody” in order to have the audience bear witness to injustice. Young Sadie calls on generations of matriarchal ancestors to find the truth about her mother amidst a southern cul-de-sac called Sugarland.
Black No More
Running January 20th-February 27th, 2022 @ New Group Pershing Center
Book by John Ridley, music by Tariq Trotter, Anthony Tidd, James Poyser and Daryl Watters
Directed by Scott Elliott
A new musical at The New Group, “Black No More” is inspired by George S. Schuler’s novel set during the Harlem Renaissance. The Afrocentrist novel centers on a mysterious machine that turns Black people white, that is supposed to “solve” the American race problem.
Confederates
Running March 8th-April 10th, 2022 @ Signature Theatre
By Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Stori Ayers
“Confederates” follows Sara, an enslaved rebel turned Union Spy during the Civil War, and Sandra, a tenured professor in a modern-day private university. Even though the women’s stories are separated by more than 100 years, the parallel stories highlight themes of identity, race, gender, institutional racism, and bias that have and still persist in the American Educational systems.
Skeleton Crew
Running through February 20th, 2022 @ MTC
By Dominique Morisseau
Directed by Ruben Santiago-Hudson
Set in Detroit in 2008, “Skeleton Crew” follows a group of workers in a small automotive factory on the brink of closing on the eve of the Great Recession. First produced in 2016, the themes of work in an uncertain world couldn’t be more prescient now as the world of work changes in the pandemic.
Paradise Square
Opens March 15th 2022 @ Barrymore Theater
Book by Christina Anderson, Craig Lucas, Larry Kirwan. Music by Jason Howland. Lyrics by Nathan Tysen, and Masi Asare
Directed by Moisés Kaufman
A musical set in New York in 1863, “Paradise Square” follows the lives of Irish and free Black Americans in the Manhattan’s Five Points neighborhood during the Civil War. The communities came together in the bars and dance halls to give birth to the tradition of tap dancing, but also fought brutally during the NY Draft Riots of 1863. It is a story of racial harmony undone by war, poverty, and immigration.
for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf
Opens April 1st, 2022 @ The Booth Theatre
By Ntozake Shange
Directed by Camille A. Brown
Ntozake Shange’s first and most acclaimed work returns to Broadway for the first time. It first premiered in 1976, and is a series of poetic monologues that are accompanied by dance and music. Shange coined the term “choreopoem” specifically for this work. The piece tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression and racism, but who find strength in each others humor and passion.
A Strange Loop
Opens April 6th 2022 @ The Lyceum
Music, Book, and Lyrics by Michael R. Jackson
Directed by Stephen Brackett
Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer prize for Drama, “A Strange Loop” is a musical about a young gay black writer named Usher as he tries to navigate the heteronormative white world as an artist. He is accompanied by a six-person all-black-queer ensemble who helps him express his thoughts and frustrations as he ghost writes a new Tyler Perry stage play.
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