Bridge Program

Context & Structure

While our theaters rebuild the capacity to participate in traditional Rolling World Premieres, NNPN can leverage the financial resources already set aside for that program in its FY21 budget to incentivize theaters to prioritize programming new work by BIPOC artists. Whether in development or production, work that is responsive to and in conversation with NNPN Member Theaters’ specific communities and the particular issues with which they are grappling,can move us closer to our goals of creating an anti-racist and anti-biased space for new plays.

The goals of the Bridge Program are two-fold:

• To incentivize NNPN Member Theaters to develop, produce, and extend the life of new plays by theater artists who are Black, Indigenous, and/or People of Color (BIPOC) in their re-imagined 2020-21/2021 seasons.
• To incentivize and support NNPN Member Theaters in developing and implementing anti-racist practices in their production of new plays by, for, about, and with BIPOC theater makers.

Accountability to Anti-Racism

Audiences are recognized as a critical agent in any theatrical process;projects are required to have a public/presentation component.

The primary point person and generative artist(s)responsible for/associated with the project will become part of a cohort for collective accountability around participating in the Bridge Program.

Facilitated monthly chats will bring the cohort together so that they can provide mentorship, mutual support, and group accountability as they build best practices and navigate the artistic processes for their projects.Participation in these sessions are mandatory. Some sessions will be convened as separate BIPOC & White Anti-Racist Affinity spaces.The cohort will also have a dedicated area on MightyNetworks, NNPN’s member engagement platform,to share resources and continue the conversation between chats.

Through MightyNetworks, theaters agree to share their process and the best practices they establish during these artistic processes with NNPN staff and other NNPN Member Theaters.This will create a “library” of model practices for supporting BIPOC artists working on new plays in both TOCs and PWIs.

Current Bridge Program Projects

• 
  Crossroads Podcast

  by Actor's Express

  The Actor’s Express Crossroads Podcast is a serialized drama written by six Atlanta-based playwrights that follows three friends through time and space on an adventure that tests their very souls, and it will be distributed on major podcast platforms such as iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music and iHeartRadio.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  The New American Theatre Festival

  by B Street Theater and In The Margin

  The New American Theatre Festival focuses on embracing intersectional new works as the default for the American Theatre cannon by inspiring change, demanding proactive action in pursuit of justice, and welcoming a new renaissance.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Buffalo Women

  by Beaufield Berry

  Juneteenth. New lives. New Freedoms. Beaufield Berry’s Buffalo Women at The BLUEBARN Theatre centers Black women on the American frontier following the first Juneteenth, upending our understanding of black lives in the 1800’s with music, story, and song.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Surely Goodness and Mercy

  by Chisa Hutchinson

  Drawing upon this season’s themes of connection and caregiving, Passage Theatre will be producing a virtual production of Chisa Hutchinson’s touching play, Surely Goodness and Mercy, adapted for young audiences, which follows a young boy whose grace and caring for others leads to the discovery of his own inner strength.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Chinatown Project

  by Company One Theatre and Pao Arts Center/Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center

  Kit Yan and Melissa Li, together with Company One Theatre and the Pao Arts Center/Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center, are creating the Chinatown Project — an original song cycle that uplifts and amplifies the unique narratives of Boston’s Chinatown community. Their two-year residency will culminate in an outdoor event at the Chinatown Gate in late summer 2021 (should public health concerns allow it), and/or in a digital space.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Brilliant Mind

  by Denmo Ibrahim

  Marin Theatre Company’s originating co-production with Storykrapht of Denmo Ibrahim’s Brilliant Mind is a live and interactive digital experience with branching narratives inspired by true stories of first-generation Americans. Brilliant Mind is an excavation of the politics of gender in immigrant communities and the challenges ever present between tradition and culture, taking a hard look at generational trauma, the struggle between self and family, and the weight to carry a legacy.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Rising Tide Commissioning Program

  by Diversionary Theatre

  Through Diversionary Theatre’s Rising Tide Commissioning Program, Kenny Ramos will be developing a new play that centers two-spirit, Kumeyaay experiences in reservation and urban settings in southern California; and Farah Dinga will be developing a new play inspired by South West Asian mythology that mixes magic realism with the queer American experience.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  New Georgia Woman Project: Black Women Speak

  by Horizon Theatre Company

  Horizon Theatre Company’s New Georgia Woman Project: Black Women Speak will develop plays chronicling the experiences of today’s Black women of Georgia utilizing a cohort of four Black women writers and inspired by an extensive interview process with real women of Georgia.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation

  by India Nicole Burton

  After three years in development, Cleveland Public Theatre will produce India Nicole Burton’s Panther Women: An Army for the Liberation, a choreopoem inspired by the women of the Black Panther Party and Civil Rights Movement.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  City Without Altar

  by Jasminne Mendez

  Milagro (Portland, OR), Teatro Luna West (Los Angeles & Chicago), and UrbanTheater Company (Chicago, IL) will partner to develop and produce a series of virtual development intensives and a virtual live reading of City Without Altar by Jasminne Mendez (Houston, TX). This play will also serve as a launchpad for a focused and in-depth approach for dismantling anti-blackness in Latinx communities through theatre in our three cities.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  The Most Beautiful Home...Maybe

  by Mark Valdez

  The Most Beautiful Home…Maybe by Mark Valdez, developed and produced at Mixed Blood Theatre, offers a nerdy and raucous vision for guaranteed housing. The multi-media performance juxtaposes housing data, Lyndon Johnson, and stories of Americans facing home insecurity, past and present. Offered as a two-part engagement and performance event, the project brings together key players in housing policy (advocates, tenant groups, developers, government workers, etc.) to envision a future where everyone has a home. There is a mounting need for solutions to our national housing crises. Can theater help solve these challenges?

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  The Billboard

  by Natalie Y. Moore

  16th Street Theater will workshop, produce and create a neighborhood tour of author and journalist Natalie Y. Moore’s The Billboard about a fictional health clinic serving Black women in Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood and their fight with a local gadfly running for city council.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  LOCAL COLOR

  by Plan-B Theatre

  The world premiere of LOCAL COLOR (June 3-13, 2021) streams as audio drama on Plan-B Theatre’s website and app and is comprised of four short plays by first-time playwrights from our Theatre Artists of Color Writing Workshop: DoLs by Dee-Dee Darby-Duffin (a comedy about becoming fast friends in the most awkward situation imaginable); Guise by Chris Curlett (a dramedy about [re]defining masculinity); Organic by Tito Livas (a dark comedy about love, perception and Grindr); and Suicide Box by Tatiana Christian (an even darker comedy about the deadly side of customer service).

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  the performing class

  by Preston Choi

  In collaboration with Philadelphia Asian Performing Artists, InterAct Theatre Company will engage playwright Preston Choi in a three-phase development process, taking his play the performing class — a dark comedy about the relationship between class and art — from its current draft toward production readiness.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  The Ever Present

  by R. Eric Thomas

  Theatre Exile will use the support of the Bridge Program to create and produce the world premiere of R. Eric Thomas’s The Ever Present, an all-ages play that is resonant with and directly inspired by our South Philadelphia community, and designed to uplift and highlight the voices often unheard in our region.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Christmas Mubarak

  by Silk Road Rising

  Silk Road Rising’s Christmas Mubarak tells the stories of Jesus and Mary as they appear in Islamic scripture, commentary, and tradition, to build a vision of Christian-Muslim understanding and promote greater consciousness of a Judeo-Christian-Islamic continuum.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  Tales of a Blerd Ballerina

  by Valoneecia Tolbert

  Tales of a Blerd Ballerina, written and performed by Valoneecia Tolbert and produced at The VORTEX, centers the Blerd (Black nerd) experience, generates vital conversations around Black identity, and incorporates styles from the Afro-Diaspora and Jazz Aesthetic.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

• 
  KWEEN

  by Vichet Chum

  KWEEN, by Vichet Chum follows 16-year-old Soma, a Cambodian-American student at Lowell High School, who discovers her secret powers as a poet. Under the alias of the Khmer Kerouac, Soma’s new-found passion arises against the back drop of her father’s recent deportation, her mother’s journey to Cambodia to rectify the situation and her sister Dahvy’s upcoming wedding. The upcoming world premiere production at Merrimack Repertory Theatre is presented in partnership with Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Lowell.

  To learn more about this project, click here.

Completed Bridge Program Projects