Brava! for Women in the Arts & Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience present
Sweet Maladies
by Zakiyyah Alexander
Directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe
With Lisa Porter and Brit Frazier (from last year’s In A Daughter’s Eyes), Kehinde Koyejo and Stefanee Martin.
July 18-August 3
Thurs-Sat 8pm, Sun at 3pm
Nominated for 4 2014 TBA Awards!!! Outstanding Direction, Best Ensemble, Oustanding Overall Production & Stefanee Martin received a nomination for Best Female Performer in a Principal Role!
Read Review by Robert Avila, SF Bay Guardian
Two years into Reconstruction, four girls contemplate a future and their place in the new post-slavery society. Deftly written with a sly humor, Sweet Maladies illuminates the possibilities that have existed between races since slavery’s abolition and confronts the baggage that mitgate thsoe possibilities. As the four girls - three sisters and their former mistress - grapple with power and place, secrets are revealed, betrayals become potent resulting in a shocking and bittersweet conclusion. Based on the Jean Genet classic, The Maids.
Zakiyyah Alexander is a resident playwright at New Dramatists since 2004. Current plays include, 10 Things To Do Before I Die (Second Stage Uptown), Sick? (Summer Play Festival), The Etymology Of Bird (Hip Hop Theater Festival; Providence Black Repertory Company), Blurring Shine (Market Theatre, Johannesburg), and Sweet Maladies (Darius Rucker Riverside Theatre). She has received developmental support from Bristol Riverside Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Hartford Stage, The Providence Black Repertory Company, 24/7 Theater Company, Hip Hop Theater Festival, Vineyard Theatre, the Women’s Project, La MaMa E.T.C., Greenwich Street Theatre, and more. Awards include, Helen Merrill Award, ACT New Play Award/Lorraine Hansberry Award, Stellar Network Award, the Theodore Ward Prize, Jackson Phelan Award, Drama League New Directors/New Works, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, Young Playwrights Inc., etc. Her work is included in the current edition of New Monologues for Women by Women, featured in the book of essays, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, and Game on: The Humana Festival ‘08 Anthology. Zakiyyah has also written for Grey’s Anatomy. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama (MFA in playwriting), she is currently on faculty at Bard College where she teaches undergraduate playwriting