Metropolitan’s Sixth Annual Living Literature Features Harlem Renaissance Fest
Metropolitan Playhouse hosts The Harlem Renaissance Festival, the theater’s sixth annual Living Literature Festival of performances inspired by the lives and works of American authors. The Festival is a collection of seven new works by artists and companies from near and far taking their inspiration from The Harlem Renaissance. Performances take place daily from January 17 to 30 at Metropolitan Playhouse, 220 East Fourth Street.
Tickets may be purchased online at www.metropolitanplayhouse.org, or by phone at 212 995 5302.
The Harlem Renaissance Festival includes musical, poetic, one-act and full-length plays ranging from adaptations to biographical fantasy. Rather than an exhaustive survey of the literature of the period, The Harlem Renaissance Festival is a deep exploration of several well- and lesser-known artists and their oeuvre. All in all each new work is presented four times over the festival. (Project descriptions and schedule follow.)
Artists and figures featured include poets Langston Hughes, Georgia Doulas Johnson, Countee Cullen, Angelina Grimke, and Paul Laurence Dunbar; composers Duke Ellington, Fats Waller; journalist and activist Marcus Garvey, as well as surprising personages such as enterprising purveyer of good eats, Pig Foot Mary, and librarian Belle da Costa Greene-first director of the Pierpont Morgan Library.
Additional events include readings of salient works, and discussions with contemporary artists and scholars.
Artist participants in the festival include Danny Ashkenasi (beTwixt, beTween & be TWAIN “Evocative and exciting … gorgeous … beautiful … A musical voice that commands attention” – nytheatre.com” ); Leah Maddrie (O’Neill Conference semi-finalist, EST Sloan Foundation commission); Daniel Carlton (Artistic Director of Committed Artists of Color); students from the Newburgh Performing Arts Academy; David Lally (Little Edie and the Marble Faun “[a] touching examination of memory and loss.” – Backstage); Juliane Hiam (writer-in-residence at MassMOCA; A Tanglewood Tale – Melvilapalooza); and Xoregos Performing Company.
Previous years’ festivals were the Poefest (2006), Twainathon (2007), Hawthornucopia (2008-“exhilarating”–nytheatre.com), and Melvillapalooza (2009 “divine…. put the life and works of Melville in a new light” – New Theatre Corps), and Another Sky (2010). Metropolitan Playhouse explores America’s theatrical and cultural moment. Metropolitan has earned accolades from The New York Times, The Village Voice, BackStage, and nytheatre.com. Recent noted productions include Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Drunkard, Dodsworth, The Return of Peter Grimm, Year One of the Empire, The Pioneer: 5 plays by Eugene O’Neill, Denial and The Melting Pot.
Tickets are $18.00 per show. Student and senior discounts are $15.00. Children under 18 $10.00. TDF vouchers are accepted. Visit www.metropolitanplayhouse.org for more information and to purchase tickets online or call 212 995 5302
Read more: http://offbroadway.broadwayworld.com/article/Metropolitans_Sixth_Annual_Living_Literature_Fest_Features_Harlem_Renaissance_20101227#ixzz19KelFeXy