ARENA STAGE AMERICAN VOICES NEW PLAY INSTITUTE

HOLDS SECOND SYMPOSIUM TO EXPLORE ISSUES ON

DEVELOPMENT OF NEW AMERICAN THEATER
Black Voices: Stories We're Planning To Tell

a convening of 30 OF AMERICA 's LEADING BLACK Playwrights

FREE public presentation Sunday, January 17 at 7:30 p.m. at

Georgetown University 's Gonda Theatre.

The Arena Stage American Voices New Play Institute (AVNPI) in partnership with Georgetown University 's Theater and Performance Studies Program presents Black Voices: Stories We're Planning to Tell a public presentation following a private, two-day convening of 30 of the nation's leading black playwrights and artistic leaders. The private convening will address the following questions: what stories are black playwrights allowed to tell in American theater today; what are the issues presented in their works; and what are the challenges facing development of new plays by black playwrights?

The public presentation will share discussion points from the convening and will feature Lydia R. Diamond, Marcus Gardley, Paul A.Notice II, Rha Goddess, Daniel Beaty and others personally reading selections from their own works-in-progress. Following the readings, the convening's participating playwrights will be available to answer questions from the audience about the playwrights' experience in the field and their approach to creating new plays.

The free public event will be presented at the Gonda Theatre in the Davis Performing Arts Center ,Georgetown University, Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. Reservations can be made by calling the Arena Stage Sales Office at (202)488-3300.

The public event will also be webcasted live here: http://arenastage. org/about/ news/black- voices.shtml. Questions and comments can also be tweeted to the panelists by using the hashtag #newplay.

The participants of Black Voices: Stories We're Planning to Tell include:

Christina Anderson (Good Gods)

Neil Barclay (CEO, National Black Arts Festival)

Daniel Beaty (Resurrection, Emergence-SEE! )

Pearl Cleage (Blues for an Alabama Sky)

Kia Corthron (Light Raise the Roof)

Lydia R. Diamond (Stick Fly, The Bluest Eye)

Karen Evans (We MissYou, Executive Director Black Women Playwrights' Group)

Kamilah Forbes (Hip Hop Theater Festival ArtisticDirector)

Farrell Foreman (Playwright, Poet and Dir. of Bear ArtsFoundation)

Marcus Gardley (Every Tongue Must Confess)

Sandra Gibson (President & CEO, Association ofPerforming Arts Presenters)

Rha Goddess (performance artist, LOW: Meditations Trilogy Part 1)

Danai Gurira (Eclipsed and co-author of In the Continuum)

Katori Hall (TheMountaintop)

Paul Carter Harrison (The Drama of Nommo)

Jacqueline Lawton (Blood-bound and Tongue-tied)

Jennifer Nelson (African Continuum Theater FoundingArtistic Director)

Paul A. Notice II (Nicole & Anthony)

Lynn Nottage (Pultizer Prize-winner of Ruined)

Robert O'Hara (Antebellum, dir. of world premiere of Brother/Sister Plays)

Psalmayene 24 (Zomo the Rabbit-A Hip-Hop Creation Myth)

Nikkole Salter (co-author of In the Continuum)

Regina Taylor (Crowns)Dominic Taylor (PersonalHistory, Associate Artistic Director Penumbra Theatre)

David Emerson Toney (Kingdom)

Shay Wafer (VP of Programming, August Wilson Center for AfricanAmerican Culture)

Talvin Wilks (An American Triptych, 2009 coordinator for the Black TheaterInitiative)

Tracey Scott Wilson (The Good Negro)

Director/Writer

African-American Collective Theater (ACT)

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