Harlem Remembered:  A Tribute to the Harlem Renaissance

The Xoregos Performing Company is proud to present Harlem Remembered: A Tribute to the Harlem Renaissance, a series of free performances throughout Black History Month spotlighting the drama, music and poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, at various venues in New York City and Westchester and Orange counties.

The program features theatrical events as well as music, dance, storytelling and poetry. All performances are free unless otherwise noted. Highlights include:

•  The world premiere of Exit, an Illusion, by Marita Bonner, one of the most influential writers of the Harlem Renaissance whose plays, essays and short stories focused on such issues as poverty, poor housing and color discrimination in the black communities. The play was the first-prize winner in the 1927 Crisis magazine contest.

• A new production of The Hunch, a comedy by Eulalie Spence, an accomplished writer who wrote fourteen plays during the Renaissance. Spence was a mentor to Joseph Papp, founder of The Public Theater, who called her “The most influential person in my life”. Spence described herself as a “folk dramatist” whose plays focused on entertainment and comedy, a stark contrast to the artists of the day who wrote of injustice.
• A presentation of Tell Me Again, a humorous collection of Southern black folktales collected by Joel Chandler Harris and Zora Neale Hurston, and dramatized by Dave De Christopher.  Many of the stories have origins in African folklore.
• Musical performances of songs from the era composed by Duke Ellington, William Grant Still and Kurt Weill and Langston Hughes. Pop and R&B singer-songwriter Tatiana Owens is the featured vocalist. A resident of Harlem and MTV “O Music Award” Nominee, her music has been featured on CBS, VH1, MTV, Logo, Lifetime, CMT, BET, USA Network and Showtime.
• A presentation of poems of the era written by Georgia Douglas Johnson, Langston Hughes and Sterling A. Brown.

The cast of Harlem Remembered: A Tribute to the Harlem Renaissance features Odysseus Bailer, Denise Collins, Jerome Arthur John, Amy Mack, Tatiana Owens, Spadaqué Volcimus and eight-year-old Milan Williams.

Shela Xoregos, Artistic Director of Xoregos Performing Company, is the director and choreographer. Xoregos specializes in hybrid theatrical forms such as dance and poetry and setting texts of plays to music. Her New York City credits include Antigone, Medea and, in 2014, Richard C. Goodman’s Resistanceand Donna Spector’s Eros & Psyche.

Fashion designer Raiza Peña designs period costumes ranging from sophisticated Harlem garb to rural duds. Ms. Peña designed Xoregos’s Danse Macabre and its opera Circle of Haunts, both in 2013, to critical acclaim. Clark Baxtresser, an expert in musical styles of the early twentieth century, is the music director and pianist. A graduate of the University of Michigan, he is the music director and composer for StarKid Productions as well as Ani: A Parody, a new play that premiered in Chicago in 2014. He composes and performs in the Brooklyn-based pop duo TalkFine.

Lighting design is by Don Cate, former chairperson of the Theater Arts Department at San Francisco City College whose work has been featured by The Magic Theate, San Francisco Mime Troupe and Xoregos Performing Company.  Shawn Lockaton is the stage manager. Lockaton staged managed Xoregos’s Eros & Psyche and narrated Follow Your Bliss. Indya Burroughs is the assistant costume designer. She is a wardrobe consultant and stylist in the fashion and entertainment industry whose credits includeHollywood Divas and R&B singer Olivia.

The Xoregos Performing Company, founded in 2004, presents unusual programs in New York City’s boroughs including an annual summer play al fresco.  The company has premiered short plays by Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, F. Scott Fitzgerald and many originals by talented living playwrights. Xoregos Performing Company has performed at notable museums including the Smithsonian (Washington, D.C.), the de Young and Legion of Honor (San Francisco), Brooklyn Children’s and the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The company was featured in New York City festivals at Metropolitan Playhouse and Theater for the New City.

Harlem Remembered: A Tribute to the Harlem Renaissance will be presented at various locations in Manhattan, The Bronx, Queens, Yonkers and Newburgh, NY. The complete performance schedule can be found below.

For more information visit www.xoregos.com or call (212) 239-8405.

 Schedule of Performances

Saturday, February 14 at 2:00 PM

LANGSTON HUGHES THEATER

100-01 Northern Blvd, Corona, NY 11368, (718)-651-1100

7 to Junction Blvd

Sunday, February 15 at 2:00 PM

FLUSHING LIBRARY THEATER

41-17 Main St, Flushing, NY 11355, (718)-661-1200

7 to Main Street

Thursday, February 19 at 5:30 PM

MUHLENBERG LIBRARY

209 West 23rd St, New York, NY 10011, (212)-924-2585

1 to 23^rd Street

Saturday, February 21 at 2:00 PM

CENTRAL LIBRARY THEATER

89-11 Merrick Blvd, Jamaica, NY 11432, (718)-990-0700

F to 169 Street

Sunday, February 22 at 2:00 PM

NEWBURGH FREE LIBRARY

124 Grand St, Newburgh, NY 12550, (845)-563-3600

Tuesday, February 24 at 7:00 PM

YONKERS RIVERFRONT LIBRARY

1 Larkin Ctr, Yonkers, NY 10701, (914)-337-1500

Metro-North Hudson Line to Yonkers Railroad Station; Venue is across the street

Thursday, February 26 at 5:30 PM

SEWARD PARK LIBRARY

192 E Broadway, New York, NY 10002, (212)-447-6770

F to East Broadway

Friday, February 27 at 10:30 PM *

PRODUCERS CLUB

358 West 44 Street NYC 10036

All trains to Times Square

Saturday, February 28 at 2:30 PM

BRONX CENTRAL LIBRARY THEATER

310 East Kingsbridge Rd, Bronx, NY 10458, (718)-579-4244

B/D to Fordham Road

*Admission is free for all performances except the February 27 performance, which is $20 cash only at the door.