Leeway co-sponsors Dael Orlandersmith’s Forever at First Person Arts

Friday, November 14, 2014 8:00 pm-10:00 pm

[ Christ Church Neighborhood House - 20 N American St ]

Click [here] to RSVP

About Forever

Obie Award-winning playwright and Pulitzer Prize finalist Dael Orlandersmith performs a staged reading of her newest work, an uplifting memoir-driven exploration of the family we are born into and the family we choose. Forever draws from Orlandersmith's own pilgrimage to the famed Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris - the final resting place of legendary artists such as Marcel Proust, Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison. Inspired at the graveside of these timeless artists, Orlandersmith gives a gripping account of the legacy she inherited from her mother - one of bitterness, abuse, beauty and art.

Friday, November 14, 8:00pm, at Christ Church Neighborhood House (20 N American St). Tickets are $22 ($17.60 for FPA members). Click here for tickets and more information. 

About Dael Orlandersmith

OBIE Award for Beauty’s Daughter, which she wrote and starred in at American Place Theatre. Toured extensively with the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (Real Live Poetry) throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia. Her play, Monster, premiered at New York Theatre Workshop in November 1996. Attended Sundance Theatre Festival Lab for four summers developing new plays. The Gimmick, commissioned by the McCarter Theatre, premiered on its Second Stage on Stage and went on to the Long Wharf Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop. Yellowman was commissioned by and premiered at the McCarter in a co-production with the Wilma Theater and the Long Wharf Theatre; Vintage Books and Dramatists Play Service published Yellowman and a collection of earlier work. Pulitzer Prize award finalist and Drama Desk award nominee as an actress in Yellowman, which premiered at Manhattan Theatre Club in 2002. Susan Smith Blackburn award finalist with The Gimmick in 1999 and won for Yellowman. Recipient of an NYFA grant, the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights award, a Guggenheim, and the 2005 Pen/Laura Pels Foundation Award for a playwright in mid-career. Won a Lucille Lortel Playwrights Fellowship in 2006. In 2007, completed a new commission, called Bones, for the Mark Taper Forum and premiered a new work,The Blue Album, in collaboration with David Cale at Long Wharf. Currently working on a play called Horsedreams and Dancefloors, as well as a memoir, Character.

About First Person Arts

First Person Arts, a Philadelphia nonprofit organization that celebrates the power of the personal. First Person Arts' storytelling, social impact, and festival programs reinforce their mission: everyone has a story to tell, and sharing these stories connects us with each other and the world. Whether you consider yourself an artist or observer, you have a story. And we have a way for you to share it, at a StorySlam, through a memoir writing class, or at the annual First Person Arts Festival.

The 13th Annual First Person Arts Festival is presented by PNC Arts Alive. Special thanks to Harmelin Media and Penn's Master of Liberal Arts program.

Photo credit Kevin Berne

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