Spring 2023 Season Brochure

Diverse Artists. Transformative Art.

SPRING 2023 SEASON

FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR & CEO

We are so excited about the Harlem Stage Spring 2023 season as we continue our Black Arts Movement: Examined series and present other amazing events, collaborations, and artists.

The season kicks off with an exciting collaboration with Mabou Mines and piece by piece productions with the world premiere of The Vicksburg Project, which tells a compelling story of women and gender-expansive peoples of Vicksburg, Mississippi, a small city pivotal to this country’s painful history of slavery. We are equally thrilled to collaborate with The National Jazz Museum in Harlem and Maysles Documentary Center to present dramatized readings of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, and to continue our partnership with Carnegie Hall to present the phenomenal Lakecia Benjamin in her album release show. And of course, there’s the Uptown Nights series that brings vibraphonist Nikara Warren and one of the leading jazz drummers of all time, Louis Hayes, to the Harlem Stage Gatehouse.

Through our WaterWorks Established Artists commissioning program, we’ll present and explore Bessie and Herb Alpert Award-winning dancer and choreographer nia love’s UNDERcurrents. Using the thematic elements of water and doors, the work explores the idea of memory and “afterlives” of transatlantic slavery through an immersive experience that engages the audience to participate.

Our groundbreaking series, Black Arts Movement: Examined, was conceived and curated by Associate Artistic Director and Curator-in-Residence, Carl Hancock Rux, and examines the Black Arts Movement through dance, film, music, poetry, theater, and the visual arts. The yearlong series began in the fall of 2022 and continues this spring with an evening of poetry by Thulani Davis and music by Wadada Leo Smith and his Kikuyu Ensemble; a re-imagining of Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite featuring Michela Marino Lerman’s Love Movement; select readings of Adrienne Kennedy’s riveting play, Funnyhouse of a Negro, interspersed with a conversation moderated by Carl; and our signature dance series, E-Moves, centered on the Black Arts Movement and curated by the extraordinary Stefanie Batten Bland. The series culminates with a three-day conference at the Gatehouse featuring notable scholars and artists, and a celebratory concert and party at Park Avenue Armory featuring the extraordinary guitarist, Vernon Reid.

Staying true to our mission, we are presenting artists and ideas that honor the great creative traditions that were born in Harlem. Thank you as always for your support and enthusiasm for what we do.

With fond appreciation,

Artistic Director & CEO

ABOUT US

Harlem Stage is the performing arts center that bridges Harlem’s cultural legacy to contemporary artists of color and dares to provide the artistic freedom that gives birth to new ideas.

For nearly 40 years Harlem Stage has stood proudly at the intersection of art and social justice with a singular mission to perpetuate and celebrate the unique and diverse artistic legacy of Harlem and the indelible impression it has made on American culture. We provide opportunity, commissioning, and support for artists of color, make performances easily accessible to all audiences, and introduce children to the rich diversity, excitement, and inspiration of the performing arts.

We fulfill our mission through commissioning, incubating, and presenting innovative and vital work that responds to the historical and contemporary conditions that shape our lives and the communities we serve.

With a long-standing tradition of supporting artists and organizations around the corner and across the globe, Harlem Stage boasts such legendary artists as Harry Belafonte, Max Roach, Sekou Sundiata, Abbey Lincoln,

Sonia Sanchez, Eddie Palmieri, Maya Angelou, and Tito Puente, as well as contemporary artists like Maimouna Youssef aka Mumu Fresh, Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité, Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, Tamar-kali, Vijay Iyer, Mike Ladd, Meshell Ndegeocello, Jason Moran, José James, Craig Harris, Nona Hendryx, Bill T. Jones, and more. Our education programs serve over 2,300 New York City school children each year.

The New York Times has hailed Harlem Stage as “an invaluable incubator of talent” and we have been recognized as an organization still unafraid to take risks. Our investment in this visionary talent is often rewarded in the early stages of many artists’ careers and we proudly celebrate their increasing success. Five members of our artist family have joined the ranks of MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship awardees: Kyle Abraham (2013), Vijay Iyer (2013), Jason Moran (2010), Bill T. Jones (1994), and Cecil Taylor (1991).

Harlem Stage is a winner of the Association of Performing Arts Presenters’ William Dawson Award for Programming Excellence and Sustained Achievement in Programming.

CALENDAR

JANUARY 12–14

THE VICKSBURG PROJECT WORLD PREMIERE

PRODUCED BY MABOU MINES & PIECE BY PIECE PRODUCTIONS

JANUARY 27–28

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED

PART III: POETRY

MUSIC & POETRY: THULANI DAVIS + WADADA LEO SMITH

FEBRUARY 11

UPTOWN NIGHTS: NIKARA WARREN

PRESENTS BLACK WALL STREET

FEBRUARY 17

RALPH ELLISON’S INVISIBLE MAN:

READINGS + LISTENING PARTY

PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE NATIONAL JAZZ MUSEUM IN HARLEM & MAYSLES DOCUMENTARY CENTER

FEBRUARY 24–25

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED

PART IV: MUSIC

MAX ROACH’S WE INSIST!

FREEDOM NOW SUITE REIMAGINED

FEAT. MICHELA MARINO LERMAN

MARCH 9–10

DEBATE: BALDWIN VS BUCKLEY

PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH THE AMERICAN VICARIOUS

MARCH 11

CARNEGIE HALL CITYWIDE

UPTOWN NIGHTS: LAKECIA BENJAMIN

PHOENIX ALBUM RELEASE SHOW

*Note: All in-person presentations subject to change as COVID-19 conditions evolve.

PICK-3 OR MORE PACKAGE

Enjoy 25% OFF of your purchase when you buy tickets to 3 or more live events!

MARCH 24

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART V: THEATER

READINGS + CONVERSATION

FUNNYHOUSE OF A NEGRO BY ADRIENNE KENNEDY

APRIL 13–15

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART VI: DANCE—E-MOVES

CURATED BY STEFANIE BATTEN BLAND

DIGITAL

APRIL 20

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED VISUAL ARTS: DIVE DEEPER WITH PAT CRUZ & MICHAEL SAWYER

APRIL 21

UPTOWN NIGHTS: LOUIS HAYES QUINTET NEA JAZZ MASTER + ALBUM RELEASE CELEBRATION

MAY 4–6

WATERWORKS ESTABLISHED ARTIST: NIA LOVE

UNDERCURRENTS

MAY 11

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED

FILM SCREENING: JASON AND SHIRLEY PRESENTED IN COLLABORATION WITH MAYSLES DOCUMENTARY CENTER

MAY 18–20

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: THEN AND NOW CONFERENCE

JUNE 5

HARLEM STAGE ANNUAL GALA

The point of the series that Carl has conceived, that is being implemented and contributed to by our staff, is not only to absorb, but it is also to examine, to expand our understanding, to learn from the past through the lens of transformative art. As an organization that sits proudly at the intersection of art and social justice, this examination of an arts movement born out of resistance exemplifies the mission of Harlem Stage. I hope that you will join us in this journey of discovery.

Over the course of the 2022/2023 Season, Harlem Stage examines the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s to the 1970s, and its relationship to race, gender, sexuality, music, photography, film, poetry, theater, and dance, as well as its intersectionality with the larger Black Power Movement. Harlem Stage also intends to raise key questions that remain relevant to artistic production: what is the relationship between art and politics and what is the role of the politically conscious artist?

Carl Hancock Rux

Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence

Artistic Director & CEO

Photos (left) by Kwame Brathwaite. Photo of Carl Hancock Rux by Felicia Megginson. 6

Black Arts Movement: Examined is supported by the Mellon Foundation

Harlem Stage will convene seven programs, culminating in a spring conference and concert, paying tribute to the groundbreaking writers, poets, visual artists, musicians, and intellectuals who attempted to situate their work within the political, economic, social, historical, and artistic context of Black Americans.

FALL 2022

PART I: INTRODUCTION

Pat Cruz & Carl Hancock Rux In Conversation

PART II: FILM Dutchman Film & Conversation

FRI–SAT, JAN 27–28 | 7:30PM

$35 / $25

PART III: POETRY

Music & Poetry: Thulani Davis + Wadada Leo Smith

FRI-SAT, FEB 24–25 | 7:30PM

$35 / $25

PART IV: MUSIC

Max Roach’s We Insist! Freedom Now Suite Reimagined feat. Michela Marino Lerman

FRI, MAR 24 | 7:30PM

$25 / $15

PART V: THEATER

Readings + Conversation

Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy

THU–SAT, APR 13–15 | 7:30PM

$35 / 25

PART VI: DANCE

E-MOVES

Our signature dance series

curated this season by Stefanie Batten Bland

THU, APR 20 | 7PM | FREE ZOOM

VISUAL ARTS

Dive Deeper with Pat Cruz & Michael Sawyer

THU, MAY 11 | 7:30PM

$15 / $7 SUGGESTED DONATION

FILM SCREENING

Jason and Shirley Presented in collaboration with Maysles Documentary Center

THU–SAT, MAY 18–20

PART VII: BLACK ARTS

MOVEMENT: THEN AND NOW CONFERENCE

The Black Arts Movement Conference is a three-day event featuring panels, discussions, essays, and performances that reflect, examine, and point to the full experience and culture of the Black Arts Movement, culminating in a concert curated by Vernon Reid.

Photo by Kwame Brathwaite

UPTOWN NIGHTS SPRING 2023

Our monthly music series returns with live concerts featuring performances by some of today’s most exciting and talented artists including vibraphonist

and composer Nikara Warren, virtuostic saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, and leading jazz drummer Louis Hayes and his quintet.

THU–SAT, JAN 12–14 | 7:30PM | $35 / $25

SAT, JAN 14 | 2PM | $35 / $25

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

THE VICKSBURG PROJECT WORLD PREMIERE

Presented by Harlem Stage

Produced by Mabou Mines & piece by piece productions

The Vicksburg Project, presented by Harlem Stage, produced by Mabou Mines and piece by piece productions, and created by Eve Beglarian, Mallory Catlett, and Karen Kandel, traces the experiences of women and genderexpansive people in Vicksburg, Mississippi, a small city pivotal to the painful history of our country. How can we speak honestly about what happened in this place that haunts us still?

The texts of The Vicksburg Project are constructed from historical diary entries, letters home, newspaper accounts, live interviews, and original writing by Karen Kandel as well as poetry by June Jordan, Thylias Moss, and Lucille Clifton. These materials are spun into intimate songs and confessions inspired by everything from parlor music of the 1860s to traditional blues of the 1920s to freedom songs of the 1960s, and from Wagnerian lushness to solo uke strumming to a capella chant.

The Vicksburg Project resurrects deeply researched stories from the Civil War, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement, and integrates the creators’ own experiences as women — black and white, straight and gay, the descendants of enslavers and the enslaved. The Vicksburg Project acknowledges the humanity in every person’s story. Join us at Harlem Stage for this stirring world premiere run.

The Vicksburg Project is supported, in part, by public funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and with support from: New Music USA, The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts, The Café Royal Cultural Foundation, Axe-Houghton Foundation, and the JKW Foundation.

Support for Mabou Mines is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and Materials for the Arts, the Axe-Houghton Foundation, Distracted Globe Foundation, The Howard Gilman Foundation, JKW Foundation, Emma A. Shaefer Charitable Trust, Shubert Foundation, Tides Foundation, and the W Trust.

Photo by Richard Termine

Photo of Thulani Davis by Jermaine Jackson, Jr. Photo of Wadada Leo Smith by Jimmy Katz.

FRI–SAT, JAN 27–28 | 7:30PM | $35 / $25

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART III: POETRY

MUSIC & POETRY: THULANI DAVIS + WADADA LEO SMITH

Playwright, journalist, librettist, novelist, poet, and screenwriter

Thulani Davis and Pulitzer Prizenominated trumpeter and composer Wadada Leo Smith perform an evening of poetry and music alongside Smith’s Kikuyu Ensemble. Harlem, a Futuristic vision: a Historical and Cultural Oasis and a Sanctuary for the Spiritual Rebirth of America engages with Davis’ works, Nothing But the Music and The Emancipation Circuit.

Davis, an interdisciplinary scholar, mentored artists including journalist Greg Tate, and collaborated with artists including Laurie Carlos, Jessica Hagedorn, and Ntozake Shangé. She also wrote for The Village Voice for more than a decade, becoming a Senior Editor for the publication. Davis is one of several women poets connected to the Black Arts Movement, whose work continues to breathe impressionistic life into the Black Arts Movement’s sonic-social history.

For the last five decades, Smith has been a member of the historical and legendary AACM collective, one of the pioneering ensembles of the Black Arts Movement. He distinctly defines his music as “Creative Music,” and his diverse discography reveals a recorded history centered around important issues that have impacted his world. Smith is a recipient of the 2016 Doris Duke Performing Artist Award and the Hammer Museum’s 2016 Mohn Career Achievement Award.

PERSONNEL

Wadada Leo Smith, Trumpet & Digital Piano

Thulani Davis, Poetry Recitations

Ashley Walters, Cello

Erica Dohi, Piano & Electronic Keyboard

Pheeroan akLaff, Drums

Presented in collaboration with Blank Forms.

Black Arts Movement: Examined is supported by the Mellon Foundation.

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

SAT,

UPTOWN NIGHTS NIKARA WARREN PRESENTS BLACK WALL STREET

Vibraphonist, composer, arranger, and educator Nikara Warren is a true Brooklynite. Born and bred in the eclectic and electric enclave, her family, her friends, her band, and her musical pedigree are a microcosm of the county at large. Granddaughter of world-renowned jazz pianist Kenny Barron, daughter of a half Trinidadian soca/dancehall lover father, and a classic 90s “Brooklyn ’Round the Way” girl mother, Warren is taking vibes to the people with her infectious compositional sense, her post-modern patchwork of influences and cultural signposts, and her fearless musicality. Her bold quest comes from being well-versed in the vibraphone lineage, but seeking to adventure beyond it. Music critic Kira

Grunenberg states, “Nikara Presents Black Wall Street doesn’t project its versatility and creative range through scholarly jazz arrangements or covers chasing perfectionism. Instead, it offers original music converged around a stylistically fluid foundation.”

Warren’s debut album, Black Wall Street, represents a convergence of Nikara’s personal, cultural, familial, and musical journeys. Here,

she explores abstract sound-collage, hip-hop, jazz, neo-soul, Afro-Latino and Afro-Caribbean rhythms, and more. The through-line here being for Nikara — it’s all dance music. Her vision is cohesive but eclectic — just like how people’s identities are a product of their varied heritage and associations. Join us at Harlem Stage for an evening of rare and exceptional talent.

PERSONNEL

Nikara Warren, Vibraphone & Raps

Craig Hill, Saxophone

Alonzo Demetrius, Trumpet

Parker McAllister, Electric Bass

Corey Sanchez, Electric Guitar

Axel Tosca, Keyboards

David Frazier, Jr., Drums & Sampling Pad plus Special Guests

This program is supported, in part, by, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Photo by Shervin Lainez

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

FRI, FEB 17 | 7:30PM | $25 / $15

RALPH ELLISON’S INVISIBLE MAN READINGS + LISTENING PARTY

set the tone to honor and revisit this quintessential work of American literature.

In this special collaboration, Harlem Stage, National Jazz Museum in Harlem, and Maysles Documentary Center present dramatized readings of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, as part of a yearlong celebration of the 70th anniversary of the publication of Ellison’s seminal novel, and an unprecedented partnership among six Harlem arts organizations, also including The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and the Ralph Ellison Memorial Committee. The evening will highlight selected excerpts from the work, read by award-winning actors, including Stephanie Berry, Ty Jones, and Carl Hancock Rux. Throughout the program, a curated selection of recordings from Ralph Ellison’s personal record collection will be played. This will surround and

The U.S. National Book Award for Fiction recipient in 1953, Ellison’s Invisible Man served as a vital social commentary. Expanding on the social and intellectual hardships African Americans faced during the early 1900s, the overarching theme of the novel centers around selfidentity, expression, and individuality as an African American. Time Magazine included the novel in its 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005 list, calling it “the quintessential American picaresque of the 20th century.”

This program is supported, in part, by, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Presented in collaboration with The National Jazz Museum in Harlem & Maysles Documentary Center

Credit: Photograph by Gordon Parks. Copyright: Courtesy of and copyright The Gordon Parks Foundation.

Photo by Kwame Brathwaite

FRI–SAT, FEB 24–25 | 7:30PM | $35 / $25

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART IV: MUSIC

MAX ROACH’S WE INSIST! FREEDOM NOW SUITE REIMAGINED FEAT. MICHELA MARINO LERMAN

As part IV of the Harlem Stage series Black Arts Movement: Examined, Harlem Stage presents tap dancer, Michela Marino Lerman’s Love Movement, who will perform and re-imagine Max Roach’s groundbreaking 1960 album, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite.

In 1959, acclaimed jazz musician, Max Roach, embarked upon a collaboration with singer and poet, Oscar Brown, Jr., on a suite of songs commissioned by the youth movement of the NAACP to commemorate the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. What resulted, We Insist! Freedom Now Suite, marked a decisive shift challenging jazz music conventions, as its sentiments conveyed a growing impatience with the lagging pace of the American civil rights movement, and demanded a turn toward global anticolonialism. Released on Candid Records in 1960, featuring Roach, and singer Abbey Lincoln, and a host of noted musicians, the music quickly became a global phenomenon.

Winner of the 2019 Hoofer Award, Michela Marino Lerman is a globally sought after tap dance artist,

performer, choreographer, bandleader, educator, and all-around creative spirit. The Huffington Post has called her a “hurricane of rhythm” and The New York Times has called her both a “prodigy” and has described her dancing as “flashes of brilliance.” Quincy Jones has said she is an “absolute tap dancing star who knows her roots.” She was proudly mentored by some of the masters of tap dance including Gregory Hines, Buster Brown, Leroy Myers, Peg Leg Bates, Marion Coles, and Mable Lee. Love Movement, Marino Lerman’s ensemble, is a hybrid of the highest levels of musicianship and hoofing. At Harlem Stage, Marino Lerman pays tribute to this groundbreaking album, selected in 2022 by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Black Arts Movement: Examined is supported by the Mellon Foundation.

PERSONNEL

TAP

Michela Marino Lerman

Orlando Hernández

Roxanne King

BAND

Russell Hall, Bass/Music Director

Charenee Wade, Vocals

Ebban Dorsey, Saxophone

Jeff “Tain” Watts, Drums

Miki Yamanaka, Piano

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Photo by Martina DaSilva

DEBATE: BALDWIN VS BUCKLEY

Presented in collaboration with the american vicarious

“Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?”

This was the topic on February 18, 1965 when an overflow crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to bear witness to a historic televised debate between heavyweights James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the Civil Rights Movement, and William F. Buckley, Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America’s most influential conservative intellectual.

The stage was set for an epic confrontation that pitted Baldwin’s call for a moral revolution in race relations against Buckley’s unabashed elitism and implicit commitment to white supremacy. This historic clash reveals the deep roots and lasting legacy of racial conflict that continues to haunt America.

Harlem Stage presents the american vicarious’ Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley, directed by Christopher McElroen and called “unmissable!” by Vulture, in the intimate setting of the Harlem Stage Gatehouse, restaging the historic debate to place Baldwin and Buckley’s words, which still resonate 55 years later, within the voice of

contemporary artists Teagle F. Bougere (Broadway’s The Tempest with Patrick Stewart, A Raisin In The Sun with Phylicia Rashad, and Ivo van Hove’s The Crucible) as Baldwin and Eric T. Miller (HBO’s Mare of Easttown and Mope at the Ensemble Studio Theater) as Buckley, with Spencer Hamp and Charlie O’Rourke.

CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM

Directed by Christopher McElroen

Produced by Erica Laird

Featuring: Teagle F. Bougere (Baldwin), Eric T. Miller (Buckley) with Spencer Hamp (Haycock), Charlie O’Rourke (Burford) Video design by Adam J. Thompson Artist in Residence: Jaymes Jorsling

Run Time: 60 minutes

Debate: Baldwin vs Buckley was originally produced in 2020 and broadcast in partnership with BRIC.

This program is supported, in part, by, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Photo by Christopher McElroen

CARNEGIE HALL CITYWIDE UPTOWN NIGHTS

LAKECIA BENJAMIN PHOENIX ALBUM RELEASE SHOW

Presented in collaboration with Carnegie Hall

In a special collaboration, Harlem Stage and Carnegie Hall co-present virtuosic saxophonist and composer Lakecia Benjamin. Join us for this album release show celebrating Benjamin’s fourth studio album, Phoenix, out January 27, 2023 on Whirlwind Recordings.

Produced by multi-GRAMMY Awardwinning drummer and composer, Terri Lyne Carrington, Phoenix is a deeply personal and expansive album of mostly original compositions, and featuring a star-studded lineup of guests, including Dianne Reeves, Sonia Sanchez, Angela Davis, Wayne Shorter, and Georgia Anne Muldrow.

Benjamin shares, “When we came out from the pandemic we weren’t allowed to be broken.” There is no question that Phoenix marks yet another stratospheric rise for an artist who resolutely knows what she wants to say and how to say it,

all the while honoring her mentors and the traditions that have come before her. The New Yorker proclaims, “The alto saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin plays jazz that is sprinkled with the rich flavors of funk and soul — she’s a crafty traditionalist who remains in step with the rhythms of the young generation.” Benjamin, born and raised nearby in Washington Heights, returns to her roots for a joyful evening of new music with a transcendent band.

Lead support for Carnegie Hall Citywide is provided by the Howard Gilman Foundation.

This program is supported, in part, by, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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Photo by Elizabeth Leitzell

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Photo Credit: Danny Clinch 27 Photo by Marc Millman

FRI, MAR 24 | 7:30PM | $25 / $15

FRI, FEB 11–SAT FEB 12 | 7:30PM | $35/25

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART V: THEATER

READINGS + CONVERSATION

FUNNYHOUSE OF A NEGRO BY

Funnyhouse of a Negro by Adrienne Kennedy, recently acknowledged as one of America’s seminal playwrights, was a play written during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. It represented a radical departure from the naturalistic theater of the time and provided performance opportunities for a long list of actors who became the iconic talents of the decades that followed. Readings of excerpts of this groundbreaking work will be presented at Harlem Stage, interspersed with conversation moderated by Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curatorin-Residence Carl Hancock Rux, providing further context on the impact of the work and its relationship to the Black Arts Movement. Featuring discussants Woodie King, Jr., Trezana Beverley, and Jonathan McCrory, and actors Stephanie Berry, Patrice Johnson Chevannes, Trezana Beverley, Ty Jones, and Toussaint Jeanlouis.

ADRIENNE KENNEDY

Funnyhouse of a Negro is a modern classic about the student Sarah, a young Black woman living in New York City, and her search for her identity in a very complex, warring, and fractured world. This search is manifested in her many selves: Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Hapsburg, Patrice Lumumba, and Jesus Christ. Performed by colleges worldwide, this landmark play speaks to students trying to find a place in the world. Funnyhouse of a Negro was first presented Off-Broadway at the East End Theater in New York City on January 14, 1964.

Black Arts Movement: Examined is supported by the Mellon Foundation.

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Photo Credit: Danny Clinch

Photo by Christian Felber

THU–SAT, APR 13–15 | 7:30PM | $35 / $25

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART VI: DANCE E-MOVES

For over 20 years, Harlem Stage’s signature dance series, E-Moves, has brought together phenomenal choreographers, artists, musicians, and dancers of color to showcase their choreographic visions and pull audiences into an exploration of movement and message. The Black Arts Movement: Examined series inspires this year’s program, curated by Jerome Robbins Award-winning dancer, choreographer, and Harlem Stage alum Stefanie Batten Bland, and will feature works in conversation with the Black Arts Movement.

Join us for an evening showcasing choreographers responding to the legacy of the past while creating dances that lean into the future.

Supported, in part, by the Mellon Foundation, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation, and Harkness Foundation for Dance.

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HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

Photo Credit: Danny Clinch 31 Photo of Pat Cruz by Marc Millman

THU,

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED VISUAL ARTS

DIVE DEEPER WITH PAT CRUZ & MICHAEL SAWYER

During the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and early 70s, many artists of color responded to the racial and economic oppression, the assassinations, the discrimination, and the continuing affront to their humanity with art works — in music, dance, poetry, theater, and visual arts — that affirmed their humanity. Some of these artists joined groups while others made work alone in their studios that were identity-affirming and insistent in their call for social justice. Some of these works were considered a part of a Black Nationalist aesthetic.

This special Black Arts Movement: Examined presentation on the visual arts features scholar Michael Sawyer

in a free Zoom event and discussion with Harlem Stage Artistic Director & CEO Pat Cruz that will examine the impact and legacy of the visual arts during this period and the resonant artistic responses to the Black Power and Black Lives Matter movements.

Black Arts Movement: Examined is supported by the Mellon Foundation.

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FRI, APR 21 | 7:30PM | $35 / $25

UPTOWN NIGHTS LOUIS HAYES QUINTET

NEA JAZZ MASTER + ALBUM RELEASE CELEBRATION

Called “one of the chief architects of modern jazz drumming” (JazzTimes), Louis Hayes is one of the leading jazz drummers of all time. Born and raised in Detroit, Hayes was always surrounded by music, and after starting on piano as a child, his father gave him a set of drums at age 10. Mentored by a cousin that noticed his talent, Hayes went on to establish himself on the Detroit scene, working with artists including Yusef Lateef and Kenny Burrell. He moved to New York at the young age of 18 to join Horace Silver’s band, and he continued on to work with a who’s who of jazz legends, including John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk, Sonny Rollins, Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson, Dexter Gordon, McCoy Tyner, and many more.

As part of the Uptown Nights series, Harlem Stage celebrates Hayes’ forthcoming album, to be

released on High Note, as well as his being named a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master in 2023, which will be officially bestowed on him just a few weeks prior to his arrival at the Gatehouse. Join us for an unforgettable evening honoring a living legend.

PERSONNEL

Louis Hayes, Drums

Steve Nelson, Vibraphone

Abraham Burton, Saxophones

David Hazeltine, Piano

Dezron Douglas, Bass

This program is supported, in part, by, public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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Photo by Janette Beckman

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

WATERWORKS ESTABLISHED ARTIST NIA LOVE UNDERcurrents

Bessie and Herb Alpert Awardwinning dancer, choreographer, and Harlem Stage WaterWorks Established Artist, nia love, and her collaborators present UNDERcurrents. This multi-media performance and research platform invites audiences to probe the seam between catastrophic history and quotidian memory and tend the textures of generational care. It pivots on the question, “What remains of the Middle Passage as force, gesture, and affect?”

These queries are explored through the thematic elements of water and doors. The point of departure for captive Africans into the Middle Passage is described as “the door of no return.” Conjuring the continual resonance of this world-making and breaking threshold, UNDERcurrents is a participatory audience experience with an immersive installation that is activated by performance.

Join us at Harlem Stage for nia love’s powerful project, UNDER

Commissioned by Harlem Stage through its WaterWorks Established Artists Program and supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, Thompson Family Foundation, and the Leonard & Robert Weintraub Family Fund. Supported by a development residency at Chelsea Factory.

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Photo by Scott Lindenberg

THU–SAT, MAY 18–20

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED PART VII: BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: THEN AND NOW CONFERENCE

Inspired, imagined, and curated by Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence, Carl Hancock Rux, the Black Arts Movement Conference is a three-day event that begins with a keynote address by poet, music critic, and arts administrator A.B. Spellman. The conference includes panels, discussions, essays, and

performances, featuring pioneers and visionary artists including Nona Hendryx, Sonia Sanchez, Henry Threadgill, Stew, Toshi Reagon, and more. The closing-night concert co-presented with Park Avenue Armory is curated by Carl Hancock Rux, Tavia Nyong’o, and Vernon Reid, with contributions by Carrie Mae Weems.

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

FRI, FEB 11–SAT FEB 12 | 7:30PM | $35/25 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

THURSDAY, MAY 18, 2023

5–5:20PM Keynote Address: A.B. Spellman

5:30PM In Response featuring Quincy Troupe & David Henderson, moderated by Pat Cruz

6PM Q&A / Open Discussion

7PM Reception

FRIDAY, MAY 19, 2023

10AM - 11:30PM Black Masculinity featuring Felipe Luciano, Stew & Brent Hayes Edwards, moderated by Jonathan McCrory

12–1:30PM Music & Struggle with Toshi Reagon & Nona Hendryx

1:30PM Lunch

3–4:30PM In Conversation: Sonia Sanchez & Carl Hancock Rux

7:30PM Performance (Harlem Stage Gatehouse): Henry Threadgill + Craig Taborn + Dafnis Prieto

SATURDAY, MAY 20, 2023

10–11:45AM Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clarke Film Screening In Collaboration with Maysles Documentary Center

12–1:30PM Poder Latino featuring Felipe Luciano & Bill Aguado

1:30PM Lunch

2:30–4PM Crisis of the Negro Intellectual featuring Harmony Holiday, Michael Sawyer & Dominic Taylor, moderated by Margo Crawford

4:15–5PM Closing Plenary: Carl Hancock Rux

7:30PM Performance—Park Avenue Armory (643 Park Ave.), Curated by Carl Hancock Rux, Tavia Nyong’o, and Vernon Reid, with contributions from Carrie Mae Weems

Photo Credit: Robert Adam Mayer

Pat Cruz

Quincy Troupe

David Henderson

THU, MAY 18

DAY 1

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5–5:20PM

Keynote Address: A.B. Spellman

The Black Arts Movement: Then and Now Conference opens with a Keynote presentation delivered by poet, writer, arts administrator, and activist, A.B. Spellman, who was a college friend of Amiri Baraka and an important member of the Black Arts Movement. His book, Four Lives

In The Bebop Business, has been a standard text on jazz since it was published in 1966. Spellman went on to serve as Director of The Expansion Arts Program at the National Endowment for the Arts, which funded arts organizations that were in and of inner-city, rural, and tribal communities; he retired as Deputy Chairman in 2004 to return to poetry. Spellman’s address at Harlem Stage will examine and focus on the Black Arts Movement, its development, and impact on today’s cultural climate and conversations.

5:30PM

In Response featuring Quincy Troupe & David Henderson, moderated by Pat

Cruz

Noted poet, essayist, journalist, and Miles Davis biographer Quincy Troupe, and David Henderson, writer, poet, acclaimed biographer of Jimi Hendrix, and participant in the Black Arts Movement, respond to A.B. Spellman’s Black Arts Movement overview, giving further elucidation to the movement’s aesthetic, development, internal and external tensions, and critique of cultural industry. In a response moderated by Harlem Stage Artistic Director and CEO Pat Cruz, the authors also explore the movement’s relationship to the larger Black Power Movement, the AfriCOBRA movement, and Black cultural abstraction as resistance, while offering a fundamental re-evaluation of its complicated relationship with political insurgency and the larger Black community.

6PM

Q&A / Open Discussion

7PM Reception

Photo of Quincy Troupe by Jerry Jack. Photo of David Henderson by Sherry Rubell.

Photo of Pat Cruz by Marc Millman.

FRI, MAY

19

DAY 2

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alum; and Brent Hayes Edwards, Columbia University Professor of English and Comparative Literature, in conversation with moderator Jonathan McCrory, Obie Awardwinning, Harlem-based artist and Artistic Director of Dr. Barbara Ann Teer’s National Black Theatre, examine the anxiety-ridden discourse of racial authenticity and the articulation of misogyny and homophobia often deployed by the Black Arts Movement in service to a masculinist vision of Black liberation principles and its constitution of “real” Blackness. Delving deeper into the rhetoric of the Black Arts Movement’s most bombastic heteronormative assertions of Black masculinity and its more subtle black female subjugation, the panel interrogates the semiotics of Black authenticity and the Movement’s relationship to a new wave of social activism, thus creating emergent Gay Liberation and Women’s Rights movements.

10–11:30AM

Black Masculinity featuring Felipe Luciano, Stew & Brent Hayes Edwards, moderated by Jonathan McCrory

Felipe Luciano, poet, activist, journalist, former member of The Last Poets and founding chairman of the Young Lords Party; Stew, Tony, Obie, and Drama Desk awardwinning singer, songwriter, and playwright, and Harlem Stage

12–1:30PM

Music & Struggle with Toshi

Reagon & Nona Hendryx

Revolutionary activist and iconic art-rock, new-wave goddess Nona Hendryx (Joe’s Pub Vanguard Award recipient, GRAMMY/Emmynominated vocalist, record producer, songwriter, musician, author, and Ambassador of Artistry in Music for Berkelee College of Music) joins award-winning singer/songwriter/

Jonathan McCrory

Photos of Nona Hendryx and Toshi Reagon by Marc MIllman.

Photo of Jonathan McCrory by Christine Jean Chambers.

composer/activist Toshi Reagon (Alpert Award Fellow 2022), to discuss the radical power of music in the lives and work of Black women and music’s contribution to the Black Arts Movement from a feminist perspective.

Tackling social issues, love, and politics, these groundbreaking musicians discuss how music influenced their lives and helped them address urgent social issues as well as helped shape their collective modes of political Black consciousness, artistic production, and feminism. From blues, jazz, soul, funk, and R&B to hard rock, new wave, and new age music, they take a critical look at how Black women have historically negotiated intersectionality, feminism, activism, and critical thinking as well as maintained agency against male dominant power structures (including that of the Black Arts Movement), in order to contribute a socially conscious womanist perspective to its long-lasting legacy.

Toshi Reagon

Nona Hendryx

1:30PM Lunch

3–4:30PM

In Conversation: Sonia Sanchez & Carl Hancock Rux

Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence Carl Hancock Rux interviews Sonia Sanchez: distinguished Academy of American Poets multi-award winning poet, playwright, journalist, activist, seminal Black Arts Movement figure, first Presidential Fellow at Temple University, and former Laura Carnell Chair in English at Temple University. Sanchez offers insight into her role as an artist, activist, and educator who became prominent during the Black Arts Movement, raising her voice in the name of Black culture, civil rights, equity, inclusion, women’s liberation, and restorative justice.

7:30PM

Performance (Harlem Stage Gatehouse): Henry Threadgill + Craig Taborn + Dafnis Prieto

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and saxophonist Henry Threadgill’s music and his many ensembles are always unexpected. In 2014 Harlem Stage presented a marathon retrospective of Threadgill’s music and groups, curated by Jason Moran, entitled “Very Very Threadgill,” which sold out in two days after it was announced. Once a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Threadgill has lived at the cuttingedge of jazz and improvised music his whole career. For the second evening of the Black Arts Movement: Then and Now Conference, Threadgill brings an explosive trio featuring acclaimed pianist and composer Craig Taborn, and MacArthur Fellow drummer and composer Dafnis Prieto. Harlem Stage Artistic Director and CEO Pat Cruz dubs the trio, “Angels of Angularity”: swinging and oblique, dense and loose. Get your tickets now for a rare and unforgettable evening of music featuring music by each of the composers.

Photo of Henry Threadgill by Marc MIllman. Photo of Dafnis Prieto by Ebru Yildiz.

Henry Threadgill

Dafnis Prieto

SAT,

MAY 20 DAY 3

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10–11:45AM

Portrait of Jason by Shirley Clarke Film Screening

In Collaboration with Maysles

Documentary Center

Described by Ingmar Bergman as “the most fascinating film (he) had ever seen in (his) life,” Portrait of Jason is an experimental documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Shirley Clarke. Filmed in one night over 12 consecutive hours on December 2, 1966, in the Chelsea Hotel apartment of its director, the cinema vérité film’s sole subject, Jason Holliday né Aaron Payne (b. 1924-1998), is a self-described black cabaret performer, houseboy, and gay sex worker who seamlessly weaves together tales about the highs and lows of his life while becoming increasingly inebriated. What begins as a fascinating and often times hilarious performative documentary results in a heartbreaking portrait of a tortured soul, berated and provoked to despair off-screen with increasing hostility by the film’s director and her then partner, actor Carl Lee.

Portrait of Jason was first screened in 1967 — its audience included Tennessee Williams, Robert Frank, Norman Mailer, Andy Warhol, Arthur Miller, Andy Warhol, Terry Southern, Elia Kazan, Ossie Davis & Ruby Dee, Rip Torn, and Geraldine Page. Clarke’s film has since been praised as a brilliant experimental documentary about a marginalized subject and a ruthless exploitation of a Black man rarely given a platform to articulate himself in a racist and homophobic world.

12–1:30PM

Poder Latino featuring Felipe Luciano & Bill Aguado

In this discussion, Felipe Luciano, poet, activist, journalist, former member of The Last Poets, and founding chairman of the Young Lords Party, and Bill Aguado, Executive Director of En Foco, which supports fine art and contemporary photographers of color, and longtime Executive Director of the Bronx Council on the Arts, explore the Afro-Latinx cross-cultural influence on the intersection of European colonialism and the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, and the complexities of the Afro-Latinx relationship to the Black Arts Movement.

1:30PM

Lunch

THU, MAY 11 | 7:30PM

$15 / $7 SUGGESTED DONATION

BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT: EXAMINED FILM SCREENING JASON AND SHIRLEY

Presented in collaboration with Maysles Documentary Center

The week prior to the conference, Harlem Stage and Maysles

Documentary Center screen Jason and Shirley, the 2015 docudrama by Stephen Winter inspired by Portrait of Jason. In this reimagining, Jason Holliday (played by Jack Waters) competes with Shirley Clarke (played by Sarah Schulman) over the documentary film she makes about his life, during a marathon 12-hour shoot in her apartment at the legendary Chelsea Hotel. Join us for what Richard Brody of The New Yorker called “one of the year’s finest films,” and an “anguished view of the power relations, societal conflicts, and cruel sacrifices from which Clarke’s film arose.”

Run time: 77 minutes, followed by conversation with the Director, Stephen Winter.

MAYSLES DOCUMENTARY CENTER (343 MALCOLM X BLVD.) GET TICKETS

“It’s the most fascinating film I have ever seen”

—Ingmar Bergman

“MESMERIZING.”

—Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

2:30–4PM Crisis of the Negro Intellectual featuring Harmony Holiday, Michael Sawyer & Dominic Taylor, moderated by Margo Crawford

Historian Harold Cruse’s controversial book, The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual, published in 1967, has been praised as a groundbreaking intellectual history of Black radicalism from the Harlem Renaissance to the Civil Rights Movement, as well as a monument of historical-critical analysis of the Black intellectual tradition and its many schools of critical thought and scholarly perspectives. The work has also been dismissed by some as a flawed and ruthless attack on Black intellectuals, artists, civil rights liberals, Communists, and Black Nationalists (Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Ossie Davis, and Lorraine Hansberry, among others) and what he deemed to be their inherently doomed integrationist approach towards American pluralism.

This panel, including writer, dancer, and experimental filmmaker, Harmony Holiday; Associate Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh, Michael Sawyer; and Professor of African American

Studies and Theater at UCLA, as well as scholar of African-American theater and writer-director, Dominic Taylor; moderated by Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, Margo Crawford, whose scholarship encompasses the Black Arts Movement and exploring new ways of understanding Black radical imaginations; looks at Cruse’s critique of inclusive Black radicalism, then and now, and his prescriptive theorem that Black nationalism should be rooted in a Marxist approach to Black liberation principles.

4:15–5PM

Closing Plenary: Carl Hancock Rux

Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence

Carl Hancock Rux offers closing thoughts at the conclusion of the Black Arts Movement: Then and Now Conference, reflecting on the conversations held during the convening, the impact of the Black Arts Movement and the seminal role played by Amiri Baraka, and how the Black Arts Movement will continue to influence current and future movements around Black culture and arts.

7:30PM

Performance—Park Avenue Armory (643 Park Ave.), Curated by Carl Hancock Rux, Tavia Nyong’o, and Vernon Reid, with contributions from Carrie Mae Weems

HAPO NA ZAMANI

Join us at Park Avenue Armory for Hapo Na Zamani (translated from Swahili as “once upon a time”), the star-studded culminating event of Harlem Stage’s yearlong Black Arts Movement: Examined series and its Black Arts Movement: Then and Now Conference. This co-presentation with the Armory is an immersive transmedia installation event, fusing video, vocal performance, sculpture, sound installation, fashion, and movement as a radical reimagining of Black Art and Culture, Past, Present, and Future. Curated by Harlem Stage Associate Artistic Director/Curatorin-Residence Carl Hancock Rux, Park Avenue Armory curator Tavia Nyong’o, and GRAMMY Awardwinning musician Vernon Reid, with contributions from celebrated artist Carrie Mae Weems, among others, this mega “happening” explores the contribution of Black art and culture in conversation with light, sound, and multimedia.

Vernon Reid

Harmony Holiday

Michael Sawyer

MON, JUN 5 | 7PM

HARLEM STAGE GATEHOUSE LIVE

HARLEM STAGE ANNUAL GALA

The 2023 Annual Gala kicks off Harlem Stage’s 40th Anniversary. The evening will be a start to our yearlong celebration of the transformative artists we showcase and a forward look to the groundbreaking artists that will shape Harlem Stage’s future.

Join us for the best party in town, including our awards ceremony, fabulous special guests, delicious food, and cocktails. To find out more information about sponsorship, purchasing a ticket, or making a donation, contact our Development Manager Julianna Friedman at: jfriedman@harlemstage.org

THE HARLEM STAGE FAMILY OF SUPPORTERS

The SHS Foundation

Other significant institutional support provided by the Thompson Family Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, and the Leonard & Robert Weintraub Family Fund.

JoAnn Chase Company

THE HARLEM STAGE FAMILY OF SUPPORTERS

Harlem Stage deeply appreciates the many individuals and institutions that provide their generous support, making our programs possible. We are pleased to recognize the following contributors for their donation of $1,000 or more:

ENDOWMENT

Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation

Leonard and Sophie Davis Estate

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

PUBLIC SOURCES

New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

Mayor Eric Adams and Commissioner Laurie Cumbo and the New York City Council

National Endowment for the Arts

New York State Council on the Arts

Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone

FOUNDATIONS

Altman Foundation

Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation, Inc.

Association of Performing Arts Professionals

Bloomberg Philanthropies

The BWF Foundation Inc.

Capozzalo Heil Giving Fund

Cheswatyr Foundation

Citi Foundation

Columbia Community Service

Cotsen Foundation for the Art of Teaching

Joseph and Joan Cullman

Foundation for the Arts

Davis/Dauray Family Fund

The Diana King Memorial Fund presented by the Charles an Lucille King Family Foundation

Doris Duke Charitable Foundation

Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation

Francena T. Harrison Foundation

The Ford Foundation

The Howard Gilman Foundation

The Harkness Foundation for Dance

Hearst Foundation

Jerome Foundation

Lambent Foundation/Tides Foundation

The Leonard & Robert Weintraub Family Fund

Lucille Lortel Foundation

Mellon Foundation

Mertz Gilmore Foundation

Metzger-Price Fund

Mid-Atlantic Arts Regional Resilience Fund

Mosaic Network and Fund in the New York

Community Trust

New Music USA

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Open Society Foundations

May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation

The Scherman Foundation, Inc.

SHS Foundation

The Shubert Foundation, Inc.

The David and Sylvia Teitelbaum Fund, Inc.

The Thompson Family Foundation

CORPORATIONS

BET Networks

Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aid

Consolidated Edison Company

JoAnn Chase Company

JPMorgan Chase

Local One IATSE Theatrical Stage Employees

Manhattan Beer Distributors

Paradigm Talent Agency

Paula Cooper Gallery

Rolex SA

SESAC, Inc.

Simon Says Entertainment

TD Bank

Vision Marketing, Inc.

WABC-TV

WarnerBros. Discovery

West Harlem Development Corporation

Wonderland Ultra

INDIVIDUALS

Tracy L. Austin

Rosemarie and Burnside Anderson

Neal Baer

Catherine Baker-Pitts

Stefany and Simon Bergson

Angela Glover Blackwell* and Fred Blackwell

Jamilla and Alvin Bragg

Bill Bragin

Jamie Cannon*

Patty and Bill Cannon

Kathleen and Henry Chalfant

JoAnn K. Chase*

Barry Cohen

Kinshasha Holman Conwill

Caroline and Paul Cronson

Patricia Cruz*

Hugh Dancy* and Claire Danes*

Wendy Davies

Angelina Fiordellisi and Matt Williams

Trevor Gale

Stuart Gelwarg and Karen Lipkind

Myrna and Freddie Gershon

Gail Gregg

Agnes Gund

Michael Haggen

Maya L. Harris and Tony West

John Josephson and Carolina Zapf

Jenette Kahn* and Al Williams

Michael Kenny

Steven Kirkpatrick

Brad Learmonth and Jon Gilman

Steve Levine

Marcia and Maurice Lyons

Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell* and Marcus Mitchell

Glenn Ligon

Carey Lovelace Allison and Howard Lutnick

Mickey Lyons

Marilu Marshall

Edward McBrien

Gay McDougall

Sherman and Chris Meloni

Marti Noxon

Ryan Scott

Oliver Daniel Oliverio

Daniel J. Osheyack

Estelle Parsons and Peter Zimroth

Marguerite Pitts Maxine and John Potts

Judith Rubin

LaChanze Sapp-Gooding*

L. Josh Schmell

Robyn L. Stein

David Stone Elizabeth Streb and Laura Flanders

Jordan Thaler

Mark Thomas*

Jennifer and Derek Trulson

Tamara Tunie*

Reginald Van Lee and Corey L. McCathern

Fran and Barry Weissler

Katy and Greg Williamson

Carol Wood Moore

Michael A. Young*

*Board Members

As of December 8, 2022, list in formation. Donations under $1,000 are greatly appreciated, but not acknowledged publicly. If your name has been omitted or misprinted, please accept our apologies and contact Associate Director of Development, Shanté Skyers at sskyers@harlemstage.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Courtney F. Lee-Mitchell, President

Jamie Cannon, Vice President

Michael Young, Secretary

Mark Thomas, Treasurer

Angela Glover Blackwell

Jenna Bond

Jamila Ponton Bragg

STAFF

Patricia Cruz, Artistic Director & CEO

MANAGEMENT

Eric Oberstein, Managing Director

DEVELOPMENT

Shamar Hill, Director of Development

Shanté Skyers, Associate Director of Development

Julianna Friedman, Development Manager

PROGRAMMING

Carl Hancock Rux, Associate Artistic Director/Curator-in-Residence

Sarah McCaffery, Programming Manager and Associate Curator

Maurice Ivy, Programming Associate

Ashley Areche, Programming & Management Intern

MARKETING

Deirdre May, Senior Director of Digital Content and Marketing

Andre Padayhag, Marketing Manager and Graphic Designer

EDUCATION

Jordan Carter, Education & Community Engagement Manager

BOX OFFICE

Eddy Perez, Box Office Manager

PRODUCTION

Amanda K. Ringger, Director of Production

JoAnn K. Chase

Patricia Cruz

Hugh Dancy and Claire Danes

Jenette Kahn

Rebecca Robertson

LaChanze Sapp-Gooding

Tamara Tunie

OPERATIONS

Rodney Bissessar, Director of Operations

Lamont Askins, Operations Associate

Acey Anderson Sr., Maintenance

ADMINISTRATION & FINANCE

NCheng LLC, Accountants/Advisors

Michelle Blankenship, Principal

Aaron Lam, Supervising Senior Accountant

CONSULTANTS

Aon/Albert G. Ruben Company (NY) —Claudia Kaufman, Insurance

Big Idea Group, Digital Marketing Services

DAS Services, IT Consultant

Digital Video Services—BriGuel

Intrepid Digital, SEO Services

Lutz & Carr/Chris Bellando, Accountants

Madison Consulting Group, —Matt Laurence

Manchester Benefits—Greg Martin

Marc Millman Photography

Digital Video Services

—Jess Medenbach

Development Consultants

RL Stein Group—Robyn L. Stein

The Whelan Group Incorporated

—Charles Whelan

Snugg Studios—Derrick Saint Pierre

Arts Education Consultant

—Rachel Watts

Blake Zidell & Associates, Public Relations & Marketing

Cover Photo: Lakecia Benjamin

Photo by Elizabeth Leitzell