STORYTELLER. TRUTHTELLER. MULTIHYPHENATE.
STORYTELLER. TRUTHTELLER. MULTIHYPHENATE.
STORYTELLER. TRUTHTELLER. MULTIHYPHENATE. STORYTELLER. TRUTHTELLER. MULTIHYPHENATE.
I'm glad you’re here.
Check out what’s currently cooking below.
currently
currently
The Apollo’s Works in Process Series
In BRICKS - a new musical by Charlene Jean and Franklin Rankin – a mother represses the gifts of her daughter, hoping to protect her innocence from a world that has torn their lives apart. But as her daughter comes of age, she learns the truth of her purpose and the spirits who guide her. Will a mother’s love trump the power of the spirit world, and can this sacred mother-daughter relationship survive the betrayal of lies for the sake of their own safety?
Conceiver, Co-writer, Co-Composer: Charlene Jean
Co-Composer: Franklin Rankin
Co-writer/Dramaturg: Andrea Ambam
Director: Chesray Dolpha
Choreographer: Maleek Washington
Creative Producer: Eric Emauni
⭐️ October 29th
⭐️ The Apollo | Procope Theatre
⭐️ Shows at 2:30 & 7:30
Broadway Advocacy Coalition Night of Artivism
’On the Other Side’ exposes how our schools are entangled with systems of punishment and imagines what it takes to BREAK FREE. Presented as part of Night of Artivism — in partnership with Alliance for Quality Education and The Children’s Agenda — this performance highlights the #SolutionsNotSuspensions Act, a bill to end harsh school discipline and support restorative practices across NY.
Written by: Stephanie Pacheco — National Youth Poet Laureate
Directed by: Andrea Ambam
⭐️ Tues, Sept 30th
⭐️ The Tank NYC
⭐️ Doors at 7PM | Show at 7:30PM
Learn more and get your tickets here.
Inaugural Stage Left Festival presented by Working Theater and Broadway Advocacy Coalition at Playwrights Horizons
Stage Left is an innovative new play festival from Working Theater and Broadway Advocacy Coalition that brings the stories from the frontlines of progressive movements to center stage through six groundbreaking staged readings of plays from the 99%. Each play is paired with a community partner —REI Soho Union, Worker’s Justice Project, and Releasing Aging People in Prison—to catalyze conversation and create pathways to immediate, meaningful action.
DATE OF RELEASE
a new play by Andrea Ambam
“Separated by incarceration, twin sisters Jade and Jasper make parallel attempts to get free, despite being on opposite sides of prison walls. One seeks somatic therapy at a wellness studio, the other prepares for her fourth parole hearing. What tethers them? The aching anticipation of release.”
More To Talk About Residency
MORE TO TALK ABOUT (MTTA) is Level Forward’s Anthem Award–winning audience engagement platform that uses story to ignite culture-shifting conversations, activations, and community-building experiences.
Join her monthly at Soho House NYC in conversation with award-winning artists and changemakers who, through their work, exemplify how storytelling can help us to create justl futures.
Visit www.moretotalkabout.com/events to RSVP.
What does it mean to be a first responder artist?
Conjured and conceived by Andrea Ambam, Liza Jessie Peterson, and Dria Brown – First Responder Artists Collective is made up of independent artists (read: writers, directors, producers, musicians, designers, curators, activists, thinkers, and dramaturgs) heeding Toni Morrison’s call for artists to “go to work” when cultural and political crisis emerge, and thus collectivizing in search of answering the question: “What does it mean to be a first responder artist?”
We make high art/eye level to meet the challenges of the times and put a battery in the back of the people.
Through active listening and centering the voices and topics/themes of the directly impacted and historically marginalized, we pop up and deploy art into the community like a medicinal balm. Art is the prescription.
Look out for FIRST RESPONDER ARTISTS COLLECTIVE all 2025 and beyond.
Hi-ARTS Critical Breaks Residency
As a Hi-ARTS 2024-25 CRITICAL BREAKS Artist in Residence, I will continue the development of Twelve Angry Black Women - a black feminist reinterpretation of Reginald Rose’s Twelve Angry Men wherein the United States of America is on trial and it’s fate lies in the hands of all Black, all femme jury.
CRITICAL BREAKS is a residency program for artists who are in a pivotal phase of developing new work.