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Where We Stand

January 31 through March 1

a co-World Premiere by Donnetta Lavinia Grays
directed by Tamilla Woodard
with Donnetta Lavinia Grays
rotating performances with David Ryan Smith beginning February 15

Where We Stand is a co-world premiere by WP Theater and Baltimore Center Stage

“ENCHANTING LYRICS and FLOURISHES OF HUMOR! Where We Stand is a Pied Piper story that doubles as a boldfaced allegory about class and community. It is rich in its language…bouncing with rhyme, alliteration and wordplay.” —The New York Times

“Magical! A charismatic feat! Point-of-the-spear relevance.” —New York Magazine

“Grays is an extraordinary storyteller! Unassumingly spectacular.” —Theatermania

In a town running low on compassion, an exile seeks forgiveness, forcing the community to decide between mercy or justice. A storyteller spins a tale of a lonely soul tempted by the devil’s kindness on a fateful trip to the crossroads. Where We Stand is an epic fable of penance filled with humor, heart, and music. This world premiere production brings together two WP Lab alums: rising-star playwright Donnetta Lavinia Grays (Last Night and the Night Before), and director Tamilla Woodard, whose smash hit 3/fifths the New York Times called “extraordinary” and “relentlessly provocative.”

 

Special Events at Where We Stand

WP Lab Alumni Night
February 13, 7p

Black Theater Night
February 19, 7p
Post Show Panel Discussion: Performance While Black

Join us for Black Theater Night at WP Theater and a special post show panel discussion hosted by Civic Dramaturg, Producer, and writer Phaedra Michelle Scott in conversation with Where We Stand Playwright and performer, Donnetta Lavinia Grays, Where We Stand performer David Ryan Smith, and Playwright (Cullud Wattah, upcoming at The Public) Erika Dickerson-Despenza. As Resident Dramaturg of Black Theater Commons and New Harmony Project, Phaedra leads our panelists and audience in a conversation about theater born out of the black cultural experience and the necessity for racially diverse audiences.

Community Matinee
February 22, 2p

viBe Theater Experience Night
February 26, 7p

Donnetta Lavinia Grays

(Playwright & “Man”),  raised in Columbia, South Carolina, is a Brooklyn-based playwright and actor. Her plays include Last Night and the Night Before, Laid to Rest, The Review or How to Eat Your Opposition (2018 WP Pipeline Festival, 2013 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center National Playwrights Conference Finalist) The New Normal, and The Cowboy Is Dying. Donnetta was a 2018 Space on Ryder Farm Working Farm Resident Playwright and a 2016-2018 WP Playwrights Lab member. She is the inaugural recipient of the Doric Wilson Independent Playwright Award. Her work has been supported by The Public Theater, New Harmony Project, Berkeley Rep, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, The Labyrinth Theater Company, New York Theater Workshop, and more. Donnetta is also a staff writer on the television show “Manhunt: Lonewolf”. Acting credits include Broadway’s In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) and Well, Twelfth Night (The Public Theater/Mobile Unit), O, Earth (The Foundry Theatre), and Men on Boats (Playwrights Horizons and Clubbed Thumb), plus many regional theater and film/TV roles.

David Ryan Smith

(“Man”) Broadway: One Man, Two Guvnors; Passing Strange. Off Broadway: Passage (Soho Rep); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V, Twelfth Night, Romeo & Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, Pericles (The Public Theater/Mobile Shakespeare Unit), Gone Missing (City Center/Encores! Off Center), Mankind (Playwrights Horizons), The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Signature Theater), The Glory of the World (BAM), #9 (59E59); The Rover (NY Classical Theater); Marat/Sade (Classical Theater of Harlem). Regional: Repertory Theater of Saint Louis, Shakespeare Theater Company, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Actors Theater of Louisville, Barrington Stage, American Conservatory Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Triad Stage, Crossroads Theater Company, California Shakespeare Theater, etc. Film: The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Medal of Victory, Bee Season. Education: MFA, American Conservatory Theater, BFA University of Evansville.

Tamilla Woodard

(Director) is the BOLD Theater Women’s Leadership Circle Associate Artistic Director of WP Theater and the co-leader of WP’s Directors Lab. As a director, her recent projects include Associate Director on Hadestown on Broadway, Top Girls and Men on Boats at American Conservatory Theater, James Scruggs’ 3/Fifths at 3-Legged Dog, PolkaDots: The Cool Kids Musical at The Atlantic Theatre Company (Off-Broadway Alliance Award). She is the co-founder of PopUP Theatrics, a partnership creating immersive and participatory theatre for audiences in Europe, South America, Mexico and the US since 2007. She is a former Time Warner Foundation Fellow of the WP Directors Lab, Alumnus of The Lincoln Center Director’s Lab, Audrey Fellow at New Georges and a Usual Suspect at New York Theatre Workshop. She is a graduate of The Yale School of Drama’s Acting program where she currently teaches and is the recipient of The Josephine Abady Award from The League of Professional Theatre Women and The Charles Bowden Award from New Dramatists.

Where We Stand Sizzle Reel

Where We Stand Trailer

Where We Stand First Rehearsal Trailer | WP Theater