Theater Alliance kicks off 2018 with Idris Goodwin’s The Raid, an imagined debate between two American icons. On the eve of the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, John Brown and Frederick Douglass argue the merits of violence and pacifism, order and chaos, and the possibility of a nation free of the scourge of slavery.
A tragedy of dissenting heroes, The Raid investigates the line between civic disobedience and civic duty, ultimately asking: Is there such a thing as justifiable violence? Is it better to work within the system to change it or take up arms against the system to destroy it?
The Raid makes its DC premiere at Theater Alliance after its first production at Jackalope Theatre in Chicago, IL. Goodwin has worked directly with Director and Producing Artistic Director Colin Hovde on updates to the script for its DC premiere.
The questions posed by the script will be interrogated in a number of ways beyond the performance, through a festival of short plays as well as partnerships with area nonprofits. Theater Alliance will bring these groups together during previews to host conversations, share activist resources, and invite them to collaboratively create a living display in the lobby. Throughout the run of The Raid, audiences will have opportunities to engage in local DC activism.
Goodwin positions himself in a continuum of storytellers, and views his role in the re-telling of this history as one that gives known history a new lens. “I am not the first or last,” he says. “I am culture maker, storyteller, word-player, keeper of the tradition. I am organizer, educator committed to empower marginalized others, to claim and name their existence. Because we still ain’t fully free. And that’s all it’s ever been about. Freedom to take a knee, or to stand on our own two, to say a few words in our chosen lexicon, play our songs at high decibel, build our families, die remembered and counted, plant seeds for crops reaped by our descendants, long after we’ve wilted away.”
The Raid features Scenic Design by Jessica Cancino, Lighting Design by John D. Alexander, Costume Design by Danielle Preston, Sound Design by Kevin Alexander, Fight Choreography by Cliff Williams, III
THE PLAYWRIGHT
Idris Goodwin (Playwright) Idris Goodwin is a playwright, poet/performer and essayist. His play How We Got On developed at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference, premiered in Actors Theatre’s 2012 Humana Festival, and is being produced at theatres across the country. It is the first in his “break beat play” series which includes The REALNESS and Hype Man. Other plays include Blackademics, This Is Modern Art (co-written with Kevin Coval), And In This Corner: Cassius Clay, and Bars and Measures. Goodwin is one of seven playwrights featured in the widely presented HANDS UP!, an anthology commissioned by The New Black Fest and published by Samuel French. His one act Black Flag was produced Off Broadway. The Way The Mountain Moved, commissioned as part of Oregon Shakespeare’s groundbreaking American Revolutions Series, will world premiere in 2018. He has work commissioned by or in development with The Public Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, The Kennedy Center, Seattle Children’s Theatre, Berkeley Rep’s Ground Floor Program, La Jolla Playhouse, The Lark Playwriting Center, The Playwrights’ Center and New Harmony Project. He’s received support from the NEA and Ford Foundation, and is the recipient of The Blue Ink Playwriting Award and InterAct Theater’s 20/20 Prize. These Are The Breaks (Write Bloody, 2011), his debut collection of essays and poetry, was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Goodwin’s poetry has featured on HBO, The Discovery Channel, Sesame Street and National Public Radio. Goodwin is an assistant professor in The Department of Theatre and Dance at Colorado College. Find him at www.idrisgoodwin.com.
THE DIRECTOR
Colin Hovde (Director) has been serving as Producing Artistic Director of Theater Alliance since 2011, and served as the Associate Artistic Director at Theater Alliance from 2005-06. He was a producer of Worldwide Arts Collective Festival 2004 in Macau, China. He has directed: Going to a Place Where You Already Are, Spark, The Wonderful World of Dissocia, In On It, How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found, and Hum (Theater Alliance), Where Words Once Were, A Year With Frog and Toad (Imagination Stage), Stuart Little (Adventure Theater MTC), euphoria: something better is coming (Rustaveli Theatre, Tiblisi, Georgia), Mary Stuart and House of Yes (Washington Shakespeare Company), Riding the Bull (Riot Actors of Washington) Dream Sailors and Licked (Rorschach Theatre), Man of La Mancha (Washington Savoyards), Made in China (Solas Nua), Tape and The Last Five Years (Perseverance Theatre), Mozart’s Men (The InSeries). He was a Kenan Fellow at the Kennedy Center, a directing fellow at the O’Neill Playwrights Conference, and received a Cultural Envoy grant from the Department of State. He holds a BFA from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts and is a member of SDC.
THE RAID | CAST
Josh Adams
Nick Aliff *
Tiffany Byrd
Dylan Fleming
Marquis D. Gibson
Robert Bowen Smith
Moira Todd
* Member, Actors Equity Association
THE RAID | CREATIVE TEAM
Playwright……………………………………………………………………………………Idris Goodwin
Director………………………………………………………………………………………….Colin Hovde
Fight Choreographer………………………………………………………………….Cliff Williams, III
Scenic Designer………………………………………………………………………..Jessica Cancino
Lighting Designer…………………………………………………………………..John D. Alexander
Costume Designer…………………………………………………………………..Danielle Preston+
Assistant Director………………………………………………………………Dylan Morrison Myers
Stage Manager……………………………………………………………………..Simone Baskerville
+ Member, United Scenic Artists
The Raid Performance Schedule
All performances will be at the Anacostia Playhouse, 2020 Shannon PL SE from February 8 – March 18, 2018: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00 PM | Sundays at 2:00 PM
PRESS OPENING – (Two performances)
Saturday, February 17 at 8pm
Sunday, February 18 at 2pm
TICKETS
Online: www.theateralliance.com
Phone: 202-241-2539
Box Office: Box Office opens one hour before performance times.
The Raid Ticket Prices:
Full Price (general admission) – $ 40
Student / Senior (60+) / Military – $ 30
Radical Neighboring – $ Name Your Own Price (door sales only)
Group Sales: Groups of 10 or more qualify for group discounts. Please call 202.241.2539 for more information or contact the box office at [email protected].
Radical Neighboring: A limited number of Name Your Own Price tickets will be held for each performance. To receive these tickets you must arrive at the box office one hour before the performance time and you can decide how much you pay for the performance.
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