New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Allyson Green, Dean

Institute of Performing Arts
Sarah Schlesinger, Associate Dean

Department of Drama
Rubén Polendo, Chair

TISCH DRAMA STAGE Presents:

Love is the Message! Joy is the Revival.

CURATED BY
NATIONAL BLACK THEATRE

DIRECTOR/LEAD CREATOR
JONATHAN McCRORY

PROJECT DESIGNERS
JORDAN BERNSTEIN, JASON GOODWIN

PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER
JACK FORD

PROCESS CHRONICLER
SAJ (STEFANIE A. JONES)

A Message From the Chair

Tisch Drama is a community devoted to creation and collaboration. A dynamic production process—exploring live and now virtual formats—sits at the heart of our curriculum as a place to reconcile theory, training, and creation. One of my great privileges since becoming Chair has been the development and growth of our TISCH DRAMA STAGE programming. In these challenging times, our goal continues to be programming a range of important artists in the field that present a wide spectrum of views and processes—theatre artists committed to investigation, interrogation, and innovation.

After presenting successful residencies over the past four years, with artists and companies that have included Young Jean Lee, Steve Cosson and the Civilians, 600 Highwaymen, Phantom Limb, the Movement Company, and the National Asian-American Theater Company, I am thrilled and honored to welcome the National Black Theatre’s visionary Artistic Director, Jonathan McCrory, and his remarkable colleague Ebony Noelle Golden, as our fall artists in residence. Founded in 1968 by Dr. Barbara Ann Teer, NBT is among the oldest Black theaters in the country. Dr. Teer believed in Black Theatre as a source for uplifting, strengthening, and healing Black communities. NBT’s core mission remains the same today as it was at the time of its founding: to produce transformational theatrical experiences that enhance African American cultural identity by telling authentic stories of the Black experience. The vibrancy of this mission is as potent now as it ever has been, as Tish Drama joins in a celebration of this mission and a reaffirmation that Black hearts, bodies, stories, and lives matter.

While in residency at Tisch Drama, Jonathan and Ebony have collaborated with our students to create Building the Future Now, a program of two timely works. INTER//STELLAR explores the pursuit of joy, self-actualization, and soul retrieval while living in a challenging world. Love is the Message! Joy is the Revival. examines the power of love in this particular time of “transition, unrest, and death.” I am thrilled that we are presenting this series as part of a critical dialogue on our world, our nation, our communities, and our lives.

I hope you will continue to join us during this unique season. Watch for more information about Studio, Student Works, and TISCH DRAMA STAGE productions. Thank you for coming to see Building the Future Now and for participating in this community.

— Rubén Polendo

A Note from the Curator

When thinking about this residency between the National Black Theatre (NBT) and Tisch Drama, I think about an opportunity to engage creative placemaking, the next generation, and legacy. As Artistic Director of NBT, residencies like this push past the digital space we have been forced to maneuver and has allowed for two institutions to generate a virtual home. Through this seven-week engagement, NBT has been able to partner with the nimble and present staff at NYU to establish a creative placemaking theatrical event that is not confined by our limitation of what we think or imagine what can happen. We have been able to bend the matrix of what can happen in this liminal space and provide seven weeks of creative training to break down the modalities of how we construct theatre, how we build a practice, how we share a pedagogy, and how we truly enrich the lives of those around us. This residency has been a powerful gift—not only for the National Black Theatre to give to NYU students, but also for the students to infuse, engage, and even evolve the flame that Dr. Barbara Ann Teer lit in 1968 when she founded NBT. Through this work lead by Ebony Noelle Golden and myself, we have jointly constructed environments that can sustain building the future now! We are not waiting for some solution to show up, we are taking the tools that we know, the love that we have, the passion that we see, and the vision that we are committed to as means to heal the divisive chaotic forces of our current times. NBT is excited for you to experience these two works; we want to thank NYU Tisch Drama under the dynamic leadership of Rubén Polendo for two solid years of partnership and look forward to the conversation that we know these works will help to spark. It is humbling, as a legacy Black Theatre institution, to be the first to do this kind of work—as a main-stage production for the department.

— Jonathan McCrory, Artistic Director, National Black Theatre

A Note From the Director

There is a complexity to existing while black, it can feel at times like a conundrum, at times raw, warm, and joy-filled as it stretches the notion of simplicity. The notion of “owning” one’s blackness requires for the binary boxes we are traditionary forced into to be challenged, erased, transformed—and we are liberated. Inspired by Arthur Jafa’s seminal work Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death, this new devised work is a love note meant to be a sister to Jafa’s piece. The company of Liberators, from the production crew to the ensemble, has worked so beautifully to test the boundaries of who they are, how they breathe, and what comes when JOY lives at the horizon. This work is polyrhythmic, this work is also not meant to be complete. It is meant to be a starting place for human exploration. However, in all of its incompletion, there is something served, there is something provided. When we started this journey I repeatedly told the Liberators we have the opportunity to fail at this moment like never before. That we should seize it and allow that sense to be the propeller to help us chart new paths. By setting this as a reminder for us throughout this journey, I freed us not to try to be right yet to be in the moment, allowing the gift of stumbling. We are privileged to get to experiment around shape, form, style, and texture surrounding the “how” theatre can be made and how it works on our terms. These students have done something I don’t think I would dare do under the circumstances our society, community, and personal bodies are going through. They will always have my deepest sense of respect. As you watch our world unfold, I hope you catch wind of our collective message. We hope you are embraced by love, and that you feel the revival as a rite of passage in which you have known the powerful presence of death.

— Jonathan McCrory, Artistic Director, National Black Theatre

Who’s Who – The Creative Team

Jonathan McCrory (Director) is a two time Obie Award-winning, Craine’s New York Business 2020 Notable LGBTQ Leader. As a Harlem-based artist, he has served as Artistic Director at the National Black Theatre since 2012 under the leadership of CEO Sade Lythcott. As Artistic Director (Creative Duala), he is the creative heart of the institution, helping to select, develop, and manage acclaimed programs and productions, such as The Peculiar Patriot and Kill Move Paradise. His creative force also helped the theatre expand its reach with the creation of the National Black Theatre of Sweden. As a director, he has helmed numerous productions including Dead and Breathing, HandsUp, and Blacken The Bubble and devised works like Hope Speaks, Evoking Him: Baldwin and Emergence: A Communion (based on adrienne marie brown’s book Emergent Strategy). He has been acknowledged as an exceptional leader by executives and in 2016 was awarded the 40 under 40 Rising Star award from the New York Nonprofit Media. He has been awarded the Emerging Producer Award by the National Black Theatre Festival of Winston Salem, N.C., and the Torch Bearer Award by theatrical legend Woodie King Jr. He is a founding member of the producing organizations Harlem9, the Movement Theatre Company, and national services organizations such as Black Theater Commons and Next Generation National Network. McCrory sits on the National Advisory Committee for Howlround.com and was a member of the original cohort for ArtEquity. He is also on the steering committee of the JUBILEE, working to help artists from marginalized communities. In 2019, McCrory was appointed to the nomination committee of the Tony Awards and he was also a member of the nominating committee for the Lucille Lortel Awards. A Washington, D.C. native, McCrory attended Duke Ellington School of the Arts and earned his BFA from New York University Tisch School of the Arts. To learn more please visit: www.jonathanmccrory.com

Dominique Rider (Associate Director) is a director and dramaturg based in Brooklyn, N.Y. They believe in l[i/o]ving like it is the end of the world. Rider’s work is concerned with answering the question: “What is a world unmade by slavery?” They have worked as a director, assistant, and collaborator at BRICLAB, NYU, Harlem9, Ensemble Studio Theatre, The Haiti Cultural Exchange, MCC, The Old Globe, The Lark, Soho Rep, the Atlantic, the Bushwick Starr, Clubbed Thumb, Long Wharf, WP, the Movement Theatre Company, and the Black Lady Theatre. They are the director in residence for the National Black Theatre through 2021, a 2021 BRICLAB resident artist, a 2019 NAMT directing observer, and an inaugural member of Roundabout Theatre Company’s Directing Group.

Jack Ford (Production Stage Manager) is a third-year stage manager at NYU Tisch School of the Arts training in the Production & Design Studio. He also studies psychology and social work to inform his management style. This is his second collaboration with the National Black Theatre and fourth with TISCH DRAMA STAGE. Recent credits include The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World at TD STAGE (2020) and This Is Not a Theatre Company’s Life on Earth (2020).

Jordan Bernstein (Project Designer) is a third-year Tisch Drama student, studying sound design in the Production & Design Studio. She is so grateful to have had the opportunity to help create such a beautiful and powerful show with an inspiring cast and crew. She would like to thank her Love Is… design team for being fantastic collaborators and friends. She would also like to thank all of the mentors for their help and guidance throughout this process. Lastly, she would like to thank her family and friends for their constant love and support.

Jason Goodwin (Project Designer) is a third-year student in Tisch Drama, training at the Production & Design Studio, and is delighted to be part of this production. Goodwin would like to thank Jonathan and Dominique for creating a welcoming environment for collaboration and creativity, as well as faculty member Erin Black and the Tisch Drama Costume Shop for going above and beyond, and being flexible throughout this remote process. Additionally, Goodwin wants to thank his mom Aronda for her support and being a constant source of inspiration.

The Cast

Ensemble – Kalonjee Gallimore
Ensemble – Nana-Saa Kessie
Ensemble – Terall Miller
Ensemble – Clarissa Vickerie
Ensemble – Nimene Wureh

Who’s Who – The Cast

	Kalonjee Gallimore (he,him) is a third-year student in Tisch Drama. This collaboration with the National Black Theatre marks his second TISCH DRAMA STAGE production! Off-Broadway: Common Ground (The Actors Temple); Regional: In The Heights (RISPA Theatrical), Cabaret, Mama Mia! (Surflight Theatre), South Pacific, All Shook Up (Flat Rock Playhouse), A Brief History of Fire (Alliance Theatre), Dog Sees God (Out Front Theatre); Educational: Pippin, Promenade (NYU) Gallimore is proudly represented by Boals, Winnett, & Associates! ALL PRAISES BE. Kalonjee.com “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition.” – James Baldwin
	Nana-Saa Kessie is an actress / singer-songwriter currently pursuing her BFA at NYU Tisch School of the Arts. She completed primary training in Tisch Drama’s Experimental Theatre Wing, and is currently training at Stonestreet Studios Conservatory for Screen Acting & Production. As a fourth-year student, Kessie is thrilled to be part of TISCH DRAMA STAGE, and the National Black Theatre (NBT) production Love is the Message! Joy is the Revival. She is grateful to NBT for their support and guidance in her journey as a woman of color in theatre, and to her friends and family for their support. Kessie’s involvement in this production has been a truly rewarding experience.
	Terall Miller is a fourth-year transfer student from Texas to NYU Tisch School of the Arts’ Drama Department and is thrilled to be working on his second TISCH DRAMA STAGE production. He is a dancer and actor whose primary acting training at Tisch Drama has been in the Playwrights Horizons Theater School, with the exception of Stonestreet Studios training in the summer. His theatre credits include: The Death of the Last Black Man (TD STAGE), Trifles (Texas Tech Theatre), Little Women (Alliance Theatre), Look at Me (Columbia University Theatre), American College Dance Association Performer (Texas A&M), Counterfeit (TT Theatre), Excellence in Devised Theater (Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival), and a Musical Theater Dance Finalist (KCACTF). He would like to thank his family for their love and grace.
	Clarissa Vickerie is a fourth-year student at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, whose most recent training was in the Black Arts Institute (BAI) in the Stella Adler Studio at Tisch Drama. Prior to her training at BAI, she received training at the Atlantic Acting School and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. She is delighted to be performing her second TISCH DRAMA STAGE production. Her most recent works include performing in Death of the Last Black Man as Black Woman with Fried Drumstick (TD STAGE), LORDES at the New Ohio Theater, and stage managing an Off-Broadway production entitled Over the Rainbow: The Rock Ballet.
	Nimene Wureh is a New York-based actor, improviser, and musician. She worked as the personal assistant to actress and playwright Jocelyn Bioh on her playwriting debut, School Girls; Or the African Mean Girls Play, directed by Tony winner Rebecca Taichman and produced by MCC Theater. Wureh went on to play “Gifty” in the same play in Minneapolis, Minn. She has since done projects with Lincoln Center Theater, UCBT, Magnet Theater, and the PIT. She is also a Story Pirate, and travels to schools across America to perform stories written by children that have been developed into musical sketch comedy. P.S. – I know you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “NIM-IN-KNEE”