The Fire This Time Fest

Who We Are
The Fire This Time Festival is a platform for early-career playwrights of African descent to explore new voices, styles and challenging new directions for contemporary theater.

Exploring themes from euthanasia, hero-worship, inter-generational conflict, homophobia, and more,The Fire This Time Festival creates dynamic theatrical experiences. The festival has quickly become a destination for diverse audiences, producers, and artists seeking exciting possibilities and opportunities in contemporary drama.

Our New Season
Our third season begins in January 2012. Our core program will be a full production of short plays, running over two weeks. We will introduce new work from:

France-Luce Benson
Jocelyn Bioh
Kevin R. Free
Patricia Ione Lloyd
Zoey Martinson
Antoinette Nwandu
Jerome A. Parker

In addition to our core program, several playwrights from prior seasons will return with staged readings of full-length works. Panel discussions and music events are also a part of our annual events.

The Campaign - $2,000 in Two Months
In this challenging economy, we remain committed to keeping ticket prices low, and making sure audiences from all income levels can attend our shows. As we seek donations, the Festival has attracted support from a few core individuals and we’ve even gotten a few grants. But it is not enough to cover all expenses.

$2,000 will close our gap for the season. This $2,000 will go directly to the artistic expenses for the program, giving us the means to actually compensate our roster of talented actors, directors and other collaborators.

We’re engaging nearly 40 artists this year, and we’re not promising them millions, but we would like to provide modest stipends and cover travel costs. You can help us do that.

The Festival has reached a very exciting moment. Many of our playwrights, directors and actors are enjoying new and exciting professional opportunities. There has never been more demand for what we do. And we want to do more!

Help us keep the fire burning by making a donation today!

More on What We Do
The first season of the festival brought together over thirty performers, directors, and other collaborators to create an amazing evening of short one-act plays. Presented by Horse Trade Theater Group over a sold-out run in February 2010. The Festival has evolved into an annual event, expanding upon its core short play presentations to offer panel discussions, staged readings, and other programs.

To date, The Fire This Time Festival has produced new work by the following playwrights: Jesse Cameron Alick, Deborah Asiimwe, Radha Blank, Christine Jean Chambers, Camille Darby, Marcus Gardley, Kelley Nicole Girod, Katori Hall, Yusef Miller, Derek Lee McPhatter, Dominique Morisseau, Germono Toussaint, and Pia Wilson.

Other Ways You Can Help
Even if you can’t make contribution there are many ways to help. Tell your friends about our campaign. Join our mailing list, or inquire about volunteer opportunities. We want to hear from you!

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