Video Archive

The AfroLatine Superfriends Playwriting Hour is an incredible opportunity to learn from AfroLatine-led playwrights and theatremakers from all corners of the United States. With a wealth of experience, they will share their writing practices, experiences, and insightful anecdotes on the process, inspiration, and practices of dramatic writing. Live human-edited captions and American Sign Language (ASL) will be available for all live sessions, and human-edited closed captions will available on the archival video.

In The Astronaut, a father receives a visit from his son. Complications in their relationship quickly become clear: the son, who wears a full astronaut suit, never replies to his father. The Astronaut is a touching variation on a one-man show, with the father speaking a series of monologues to his silent son. This staged reading of The Astronaut is part of the Rehearsal for Truth Festival honoring Vaclav Havel and organized by the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.

The panel will be joined by a MENA American theatre class at California Polytechnic State University, designed by professor Hala Baki to imagine how MENA theatre can contribute to a more inclusive American culture, and a plays and styles drama class at the University of Washington, taught by Mona Merhi, who focused the course on topics related to race, ethnicity, and identity representation by examining the works of playwrights from the MENA region alongside modern and contemporary Western texts.

Dramaturg Gwendolyn Alker engages in a post-show conversation with Donald Eastman and Gabriel Berry—two members of María Irene Fornés’s design team—about the various shows they designed for Fornés, as well as their current work on the first-ever revival of Evelyn Brown (A Diary). Peter Littlefield, the stage manager for the original 1980 production, will also join.

Watch Me Work is a performance piece, a meditation on the artistic process, and an actual work session featuring Suzan-Lori Parks working on her newest writing project. Traditionally hosted on the mezzanine of the Public Theater Lobby, this version will bring the program to your home via Zoom sessions and HowlRound livestreams.

“There are three billion Muslims out there with inherently unique stories and you keep telling the same one. What does that mean?” “It means people want to keep hearing it.” Lines from Rehana Lew Mirza’s play Hatefuck ring truer than ever in a time where Muslim representation is growing yet still predictably homogenous.

For over ten years as of this event, Forest Fringe has built a community of artists and playwrights. Each year they return to Edinburgh they experiment with different ways of doing things and new contexts to accommodate even the most unusual experiences. Meanwhile they’ve also started exploring beyond the festival, creating new projects across the UK and internationally, including a festival in an old cinema in the center of Bangkok, a series of performances on night buses across London, and a traveling library of audio experiences.

Dorota Masłowska is a Polish writer, playwright, and journalist and the recipient of the prestigious Polityka Prize for her debut novel Wojna polsko-ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną (Snow White and Russian Red, Grove Atlantic), published when she was just nineteen years old. The book garnered massive critical acclaim in Poland. Since then, she has written several novels and plays and has become a celebrated literary figure in Poland.

A pre-show discussion featuring playwright Philana Omorotionmwan and an invited member from the community cover important themes that are present during The Defiance of Dandelions.

The AfroLatine Superfriends Playwriting Hour is an incredible opportunity to learn from AfroLatine-led playwrights and theatremakers from all corners of the United States. With a wealth of experience, they will share their writing practices, experiences, and insightful anecdotes on the process, inspiration, and practices of dramatic writing. Live human-edited captions and American Sign Language (ASL) will be available for all live sessions, and human-edited closed captions will available on the archival video.