PLAY HERE [______]
🌟PLAY HERE [ ______ ] is having its world premiere in NYC March 2024!! 🌟 **Support the Full Potential of this play** 🎭 Thanks to our fiscal sponsor New Georges 🎭, your donation is tax deductible 🌟
ABOUT THE “PLAY”:
PLAY HERE [ ______ ] is a remarkable full length collection of 22 "plays" written over “one long summer” by emerging playwright Nadira Simone and directed by Cloteal L. Horne w/ Nadira Simone. In various forms these tales showcase freedom, joy, hope, loss, and love, told from the centered point of the Black Woman.
Unique in its characters and accounts, these stories capture everyday life and the dilemmas that connect us all, or don’t. These vignettes paint portraits from the mundane to the absurdity of this world, without borders or apologies. Weaved together with one poetic voice. It is an invitation where ALL are welcome to ‘play’, to make art, to make change.
Featuring an extraordinary ensemble cast of players:
🌟W/ PLAY_MAKERS: Katherine Bahena-Benitez (Stage Manager), Onastasia Ebright (Lead Producer), Justin Gordon (Producer), Cloteal L. Horne (Director, Producer), Nadira Simone (Co-Director, Playwright), Malik Work (Sound Design, Player)
Funding🌟
We are thrilled to announce that PLAY HERE [ ______ ] has been selected as a New Georges Supported Production, receiving grants from prestigious organizations including The NYC Women’s Fund for Media, Music and Theatre by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment, in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts and The Miranda Family Fund.
Despite this incredible support, we still need your help to bring our vision to life! Your donations will directly contribute to enhancing the production in the following areas:
🎨 **Props & Costumes**: $500
🎭 **Additional Rehearsal Time**: $1,000 (20 hours x $50/hour)
🔮 **Projection Specialists**: $1,000
By contributing to our campaign, you're not only supporting the creation of this groundbreaking play, but you're also helping us ensure that every aspect of the production shines to its fullest potential. Your generosity will elevate design elements, including sound, lighting, and scenic, allowing us to transport our audience. Oh the worlds we can create, with your help.
From the Playwright:
“I started thinking of them [these plays] as pictures or paintings, like there could be more to the story - yes…but at the moment, it's just this ...so, what do u think of this? And what does the audience imagine was before or after this? What is it to imagine[?] - to imagine more of a story [?], to imagine more of this world [?] “
The voices of women vibrate highly throughout this project, they are the threads that make the fabric of this work. “I’m not telling her to jump, I’m telling her to fly” (excerpt)
The Nitty-Gritty
One primary obstacle in theater making involves securing the necessary funds to prevent our collaborators from bearing the burden of personal expenses in order to participate in this project. In short we want no creative (cast or crew) to have to pay to “play”. The raised funds also ensure adequate support for the production requirements of our show.
Any contribution, regardless of the amount, significantly impacts:
- Independent Black Theater
- A burgeoning Black, Afro-Latina playwright
- Theater led by women
- A diverse and inclusive cast
- An entirely BIPOC creative team
- The prospective success of this production.
If, for any reason, making a financial contribution is not feasible, there are numerous alternative ways you can champion this project. We appreciate your support and encourage you to consider one (or ALL) of the following:
- Texting: Share our donation link with five individuals in your community, network, or through WhatsApp.
- Social Media Sharing: Help us reach a wider audience by sharing our campaign on your social media platforms. Tag us on Instagram at @PLAYHERE___theplay.
- Email Outreach: Spread the word by sending an email to your contacts, explaining the importance of our project and including the donation link.
- Organize a Virtual Event: Host a virtual gathering since we will be offering online streaming of the show, you and your friends/family/colleagues from across the globe can join in. canto discuss our project and encourage participation.
- Leverage Your Influence: Are you an influencer or know of any? Reach out to influencers or community leaders who may resonate with our cause and ask for their support in promoting our campaign.
- Local Business: Do you or someone you know have a local business? Partner us to display information about our campaign or collaborate on a joint promotion.
- Create a Challenge: Challenge your friends or followers to match your support by making their own contributions and spreading the word.
Thank You
Just a reminder, that every effort counts, and your assistance in any of these ways contributes significantly to the success of our crowdsourcing campaign. Thank you for being an essential part of this journey!
Nadira Simone is the proud daughter of immigrants, Jamaican and Panamanian descent, born and raised in NY. She is a Storyteller, Poet, Playwright, Teacher and self-taught Illustrator/Graphic Artist, founder of GNODpop, a place for black art and design. She has studied Africana Studies and Film/Theater at Cornell University. A National Theater Institute Alum - Advanced Playwright ‘20. She is a current Ars Nova Playgroup member and New Georges The Jam. NYC Women's Fund | New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA)| grant recipient (2023). A Semi-Finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference (2021, 2018). Henley Rose Playwright Competition - First place Winner. An Austin Film Festival Second Rounder, Broadway Bound Theater Festival Finalist. Brave New Works Finalist. A Top 10 finalist Warner Bros./HBO Chase Your Dreams Filmmaker Competition. She teaches playwriting at the Eugene O’Neill National Theater Institute (CT), Writer’s Block InK organization (CT), The Wooster Group (NYC). Her full length Plays include: Here In Vain, The Killing of Kings (part one), The Barings of Blood (part two).
CLOTEAL LEE HORNE (Her/She), My name aptly weaves together parts of my grandparents names. Be it to muster the courage to stand before witnesses onstage or on screen, as a raw nerve, in order to shine a light upon hidden parts of humanity, or to architect a world that ignites the imagination towards transformation— I am committed to collaborative processes that illuminate humanity through the craft of storytelling. My work uproots classics and tethers itself to immersive ceremonies and rituals that center blackness, black-femininity. Calling on both the sacred and profane to locate that small (sometimes quiet) place where healing happens. I dedicate my practice to community, honest liberation, and building more just and joyous futures. Blissfully standing on the shoulders of those that come before me, I am a product of my grandmother’s prayers + my ancestors’ wildest dreams. Glory be. Holds a B.F.A in Acting from BU and a M.F.A in Acting from Brown University/Trinity. www.cloteallhorne.com
KATHERINE BAHENA-BENITEZ (they/she) is a queer Mexican Indigenous multidisciplinary artist. Katherine is bicoastal between New York and California. They’ve performed and trained at The Juilliard School, Tectonic Theater, American Conservatory Theater, 24 Hour Plays, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, California State University Sacramento, La Mama Experimental Theater Club, Teatro Espejo and Broadway Advocacy Coalition at Columbia University. Katherine has been featured in Vogue, Remezcla, Chillhouse, Target, Netflix, Fenty, VoyageATL, Chillhouse and Apostrophe Magazine ‘De La Tierra.’ They’ve had their poems published by Museum Guild and the International Human Rights Arts Movement. Katherine is a Queer Art Fellow, a Miranda Family Fellow, a LORT Fellow, an Emergenyc Arts Alumni, Stage Directors and Choreographers Associate Member and recipient of the John Cauble Emerging Arts Leader Award. Katherine says, “Con mucho amor y cariño, I do this for our gente, I do this for us.” For more: https://linktr.ee/Katherinebenitez
Onastasia Ebright is a theatermaker and fundraiser. Whether through performing, choreographing, producing, general management, or admin work, she strives to increase opportunities for BIPOC and minority theatermakers and stories throughout the theater/performing arts sector.
Justin Gordon is an actor, writer, author, and teacher. He currently is a professor at Georgetown University and a teaching artist for the New York City Student Shakespeare Festival. He is now producing plays in NYC, training to become a surfer and continues to study the craft of acting through classes and readings.
Malik Work is a NYC based actor-writer-teacher-rapper. He is a founding member of The Real Live Show, a groundbreaking jazz/hip hop conglomerate. He’s written and performed a hip hop musical called Verses @ Work, a one-man show that garnered him a nomination for Best Solo Performance at the AUDELCO Awards. His film of the same title was recently featured in the Hip Hop Film Festival, the Harlem International Film Festival, and won the International Spotlight Award at the Los Angeles Brazilian Film Festival. As an actor he’s done off-Broadway, network television, as well as the big screen. He teaches acting, Shakespeare and Hip Hop Theater centered courses at The National Theater Institute in Waterford, Connecticut. As a playwright, his play was recently produced by the Folger Theater, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. See more: www.malikwork.com Follow him at @malikwork on Instagram and Twitter.
Bianca Haylett is an actress and screenwriter based in Brooklyn, NY. She has worked in several different short films in various roles. She is very excited to step back into theatre and be a part of this production!
