minor.ity

March - April 2025

Written by Francisca Da Silveira
Directed by Shariffa Ali
Co-production with Colt Coeur

Diaspora Now!, an international African arts conference, is celebrating its Diamond Jubilee in Paris and the panel line-up this year is sure to cause a stir. Newcomer Sami Monroe, a go-getting directing prodigy from America, joins jaded veteran painter Céza Depina and formerly banned storyteller, Cheikh Malick Diallo. As they prepare for each panel discussion, generational and cultural differences lead to clashes and a fierce competition emerges between the three artists. In a world plagued with scarcity, minor•ity is a powerful three-hander that interrogates Black identity, the plurality of the African diaspora, and what it means to be a sought-after artist of color.

Francisca Da Silveira

francisca da silveira (playwright) is a Cape Verdean-American playwright, dramaturg and TV writer. Current WP Theater TOW Playwright in Residence. Fellowships/Residencies: 2020-2021 Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, The Public Theater’s 2020-2023 Emerging Writers Group, 2022-2023 Jerome Fellow with the Playwrights’ Center, The Apollo Theater’s New Works initiative 2023 Cohort, Winter 2024 MacDowell Fellow, 2024 Banff Playwrights Lab participant, 2024-2025 Tow Playwright-in-Residence at WP Theater. Plays : NOT-FOR-PROFIT (OR THE EQUITY, DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION PLAY) (La Jolla Playhouse 2021 DNA New Works Series); CAN I TOUCH IT? (2022/2023 Rolling World Premiere at Company One Theatre, Cleveland Public Theatre, Rogue Machine Theatre); PAY NO WORSHIP (2023 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize Finalist); MINOR·ITY (Colt Coeur Commission). TV: HBO’s Industry Season 3. BFA: New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. MSc: University of Edinburgh.

Shariffa Ali

Shariffa Ali (Director) is an international creative leader committed to advancing radical change through the power of art & activism. She works across disciplines directing and producing films, virtual reality experiences & plays and moves her audiences to engage with timely issues touching upon Black, Afropolitan, and African-American identities. Originally from Kenya and raised in South Africa, Shariffa has been a New York resident since 2013 where she has worked primarily as a director, community organizer and administrator at The Public Theater and The New Group among others. She is currently on faculty at Princeton University.
As a filmmaker, Shariffa’s works have been featured at acclaimed film/VR festivals & institutions worldwide including Sundance Film Festival (USA); Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art (South Africa); Brooklyn Film Festival (USA); Pan African Film Festival (USA); Electric Africa VR festival (South Africa) and DOK Neuland (Germany). Select theatre credits include Mies Julie (Classic Stage Company), School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play (Pittsburgh Public Theatre), The Copper Children, (Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Mlima’s Tale (St Louis Rep) Film/VR: “Ash Land”, “Atomu” (Official Selection at Sundance Festival 2020), “Sink Sank Sunk, You Go Girl!” (Official Selection at Sundance Festival 2022), “O-Dogg” (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) Honors: New Frontier Fellow, Sundance Institute Lab, and the Royal National Theater (UK); POV/PBS Spark Grant. Education: BA with honors, Theatre and Performance, University of Cape Town, South Africa.

Colt Coeur

COLT COEUR is a Brooklyn-based theatre company founded in 2010. Their original, story-driven, visceral theatre embraces the power of intimate live performance—it pulls you close and doesn’t let go. Their community of artists nurtures and invests in diverse perspectives to produce work that challenges the boundaries between tradition and experimentation. They embrace the ambivalence, terror and exhilaration of our time with theatre that is an antidote to the pervasive cultural illness of loneliness. They explore themes of coming-of-age, individual and collective identity, nostalgia and history, public versus private, love, lust, and loss. Through their unique collective process, every theatre artist—actor, playwright, designer—takes part in shared invention and collaborative creation; creating heart- and mind-opening audience experiences unlike any other. They nurture the next generation of theatre artists by providing access, education and a professional pipeline, while amplifying voices and perspectives that have historically been sidelined.

Colt Couer’s 24-member ensemble of actors, designers, playwrights, and directors incubates the next generation of theatre artists through the development and production of new plays—which they create from scratch. Over 14 years, Colt Coeur has produced 17 world premieres, one East Coast premiere, developed nearly 50 plays, and provided free arts intensives for over 200 students. They pride themselves in being a laboratory for exploration while also nurturing the work of emerging artists and providing them a launch pad for their visions.

Colt Coeur has a tremendous reputation among artists and audiences alike. The company is renowned for its high artistic standards, and artists who work with Colt Coeur have gone on to contribute to and excel in every level of the entertainment industry. Colt Coeur has helped launch the multi-faceted careers of Timothée Chalamet, Ato Essandoh, Betty Gilpin, Steven Levenson, Ana Nogueira, and Joe Tippett, among many others.