#2014*15 Season

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Professional Photographers James and Karla Murray spent time describing to audiences how it was living and working in the East Village in the 80s.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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At a recent AfterWords, Professor Cynthia Copeland (NYU) explains the historical narrative of home ownership in New York City's Harlem. In Forever, the main character shares stories from her youth in Harlem and her experience living in her parents' brownstone.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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At a recent AfterWords, Stew defines the “nakedness” of art and the “weakness” of rock’n’roll.

photo © Craig Schwartz

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As playwrights who take inspiration from their own lives, Dael and Stew share with audience members the importance of distancing themselves from their characters.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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At a recent AfterWords, Dael Orlandersmith shares some of her earliest musical influences and how music informs her writing.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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At a recent AfterWords, Dael Orlandersmith and Stew took time to discuss how the music scene of their youth and today’s pop culture trends.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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Dael and Stew share their thoughts on role of racial politics in music.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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At a recent AfterWords, singer-songwriter and playwright Stew (Passing Strange) shares with audience members a story about the prejudices he encountered as a young man for listening to rock-n-roll.

photo (c) Craig Schwartz

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In a recent AfterWords, Professor Marta Effinger-Crichlow explains the importance of ritual in our lives and in the narrative of Forever.

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Professor Marta Effinger-Crichlow takes time to share her thoughts on the complexity of characters and relationships in Forever.

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Director of Education Alexander Santiago-Jirau sat down with Professor Marta Effinger-Crichlow to discuss Dael Orlandersmith’s Forever. In this clip, Effinger-Crichlow explains the importance of Dael’s work within the context of African-American theatre.

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At a recent AfterWords, Neel and Dael shared their thoughts on Forever. Neel took a moment to describe Dael as a collaborator and fellow theatre artist.

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At a recent AfterWords, director Neel Keller shared with audiences how he collaborated with Dael as both playwright and performer throughout the playwright throughout the play’s odyssey to New York Theatre Workshop.

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photo credit: Dael in Forever at NYTW. (c) Craig Schwartz

“…to write like a guitar lick or a slash of paint”

Dael Orlandersmith, before FOREVER

Artistic Beginnings... Having grown up a voracious consumer of books and music in the East Harlem of the seventies, a teenage Dael found her first artistic landing ground as a young poet/actor in the Nuyorican Poets Café in downtown Manhattan. Before long, she enrolled at Hunter College and settled in the East Village, ultimately leaving Hunter in favor of acting classes. As a student at HB Studio and The Actors Studio, Dael began writing her own material for performance.

Early Productions In 1994, Dael’s first finished solo play, Liar Liar, was performed at MCC, and the OBIE-winning Beauty’s Daughter premiered at the American Place Theatre in 1995. Shortly thereafter, Dael began her artistic relationship with New York Theatre Workshop, with productions of Monster in 1996, and The Gimmick in 1999. The Gimmick was a solo play investigating the seductive call of drugs and crime, and systemic cycles of poverty. The review of the production in the New York Times remarked, “...Ms. Orlandersmith is herself wholly original, a riveting combatant in a story, like all war stories, that stamps her as one who has been there.”

Yellowman In Dael’s first major move away from solo format, Yellowman is a play for two actors, addressing issues of internal racism within black communities. Premiering at the McCarter Theatre in 2002 before moving to Manhattan Theatre Club, Dael and actor Howard W. Overshown played (among many characters) Alma, a darker-skinned woman, and Eugene, a lighter-skinned man, who fall in love and face criticism from those around them. The play was widely celebrated - Dael was honored with a Drama Desk nomination, the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, and was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

A 2006 article in American Theatre magazine by Stuart Miller explains, “(w)hat the play has in common with the solo works is its poetical language and its willingness to tackle rarely discussed subjects, provoking audiences to inspect their most basic assumptions.”

Recent Work Dael hasn’t slowed down since the terrific success of Yellowman. After winning a Lucille Lortel Playwrights Fellowship in 2006, she completed Bones on commission by the Mark Taper Forum, and collaborated with David Cale at Long Wharf Theatre on The Blue Album in 2007. Stoop Stories premiered at The Public Theatre’s Under the Radar festival in 2008, and was later performed at Studio Theatre in DC and The Goodman Theatre. Horsedreams played at Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre in 2011, and Black n’ Blue Boys/Broken Men was presented at Berkeley Repertory Theatre in 2012.

which brings us to... Forever Originally commissioned and produced by Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, Forever was performed earlier this year at Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven before arriving at New York Theatre Workshop.

Dael’s writing is lyrical, rhapsodic, and brutal. The plays are unsparingly honest, and lavishly poetic. In Forever, we see strands and fibers of Dael’s earlier work - discussions of poverty, the lasting hurt of childhood traumas, a sense of seeing the world as an outsider - addressed and investigated from her perspective today.

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Neighborhoods: Then and Now Pt. 3

In our last post on setting in Forever, we looked at the East Village, where Dael immersed herself in the artistic community of New York. For the final installment, let’s take a look at Paris, France.

Paris, France

Many of the writers and artists that surround Dael on her visit to Père Lachaise belonged to the “Lost Generation,” the generation of expatriate American intellectuals, writers, and artists active in Paris immediately after World War I.

Americans have long romanticized the culture of high society intellectuals of Paris in the 1920s. We imagine figures such as Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and F. Scott Fitzgerald would spend long hours around a café table at Le Select, writing, reading, people-watching and philosophizing with a glass of absinthe in one hand and a cigarette in the other.

Photo: Le Dome in Paris was a favorite hotspot for the "Lost Generation."

The reality was a little grittier; the brutal violence and moral impurity of the war inspired a disillusionment and cynicism in their work. This young literary circle aimed to break boundaries and capture the essence of a generation changed by war. They have inspired future generations to develop their art beyond their home country when their home country isn't conducive to freedom of expression. Motivated by a sense of nostalgia for the culture and ambiance of the Lost Generation, an expatriate artist community continues to thrive in France.

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Dael’s Literary Essentials - FOREVER at New York Theatre Workshop

Photo: St. Mark's Bookshop was established in 1977 and continues to operate in its East Village location. (c) St. Mark's Bookshop

Dael’s artistic influences are wide-ranging, from poets to visual artists to pop stars. Here are some titles that have inspired and provoked Dael, some of which she elaborates on in Forever.

Patti Smith's Poetry- This “godmother of punk” first published her poetry in 1972. Known for her stream-of-consciousness style, her poetry has been published in a number of collections: Babel (1978), Early Work, 1970–1979 (1994), The Coral Sea (1996), and Patti Smith Complete: Lyrics, Reflections & Notes for the Future (1998). To read more, click here.

Our Lady of Flowers by Jean Genet–The 1943 debut novel of the French writer follows the journey of a male prostitute through the Parisian underworld. Originally written while in prison, Genet had to rewrite the novel after the first draft was discovered and destroyed by prison guards. Considered his masterpiece, the piece is remembered for its poetic and lyrical style.

The Bluest Eyes by Toni Morrison - This book depicts racism in the American Midwest through the story of a young black girl named Pecola Breedlove. Morrison wrote the novel while she was teaching at Howard University in 1970.

Arthur Rimbaud's Poetry- This French poet’s work has influenced many 20th century artists, from Picasso to Kerouac, despite only writing poetry from the ages of 17 -20. Born in 1854, Rimbauld traveled extensively before dying from cancer in 1891 at the age of 37. Rimbauld's desire to develop new styles of poetry led to lyrical and abstract images in his work, which later influenced Symbolists, Dadaists, and Surrealists. To read more, click here.

Black Boy by Richard Wright- Wright’s 1945 memoir chronicles his childhood in the South and his young adult life in Chicago. Originally published as two separate novels, both parts were finally published posthumously as a single book in 1991 under the title Black Boy (American Hunger).

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Originally published in twelve installments in 1866, the Russian novel follows an impoverished ex-student who plans to kill a pawnbroker and use the victim’s money to perform good deeds. The character is plagued internally as he attempts to understand his dilemma: can something as terrible as murder be justified if it is for a greater good?

Another Country by James Baldwin- Published in 1962, Baldwin’s novel weaves together the narratives of several individuals in New York City’s Greenwich Village, all tied together by jazz musician Rufus Scott. The novel explores bisexuality, interracial relationships, and extramarital affairs, among many topics.

Long Day's Journey into Night by Eugene O'Neill- Though written in 1941, the play was published only after O’Neill’s death and posthumously earned the playwright a 1957 Pulitzer Prize. The drama covers a single day of the Tyrones at their seaside Connecticut home. Parallel's between the play’s family and the playwright's own autobiography are often drawn. The play has spawned many international productions and several film adaptations; the most famous being the 1962 adaptation starring Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson, Jason Robards, and Dean Stockwell.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck- The novel was originally published in September 1952, and focuses on the lives of two families, the Trasks and the Hamiltons, in the Salinas Valley, California. Steinbeck considered it his magnum opus, his great work.

Oscar Wilde's Body of Work- This Irish author, playwright, and poet is best known for The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Earnest. His only novel Dorian Gray follows the title character as he sells his soul to retain his physical beauty and later suffers the consequences of his misdeeds. Earnest, considered Wilde's most popular play, satirizes Victorian life. His witty humor, flamboyant personality, and public criticism of Victorian culture brought him both an adoring public and persecution by the British law.