Is God Is

Last updated
Is God Is
Written by Aleshea Harris
Date premieredFebruary 6, 2018 (2018-02-06)
Place premiered Soho Repertory Theatre
Original languageEnglish
Genre Drama, Tragedy

Is God Is is an American play by Aleshea Harris. In 2018 a production directed by Taibi Magar opened Off-Broadway at Soho Rep and ran from February 6 to March 11. [1] The play looks at deviant morality, familial dysfunction, being a black girl/woman, and patricide. [2] [3]

Contents

Plot

Twenty-one-year-old African-American twin sisters Racine and Anaia were burned and scarred as babies. Racine has burn scars on her arms, back, and neck, and Anaia has scars on her arms, face, and neck. After receiving a letter in their apartment in Northeast, they journey to the Dirty South to the deathbed of their mother, who is known as "SHE" or "God" and has scars all over her body. SHE informs them that their father, referred to as “Man”, set the fire that burned the three of them. SHE instructs the sisters to go west to The Valley to find and kill him for revenge. The sisters travel to The Valley to face Man and his new family.

Reception

Is God Is received 3 Obie Awards: Playwriting for Aleshea Harris, Directing for Taibi Magar, and Performance for Alfie Fuller as Anaia and Dame-Jasmine Hughes as Racine. [4] [5]

The play won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. The award, issued to playwrights annually to honor Philip Seymour Hoffman, honored the play, noting its depiction of a revenge story that draws from "the ancient, the modern, the tragic, the Spaghetti Western, hip-hop and Afropunk". The cash prize of $45,000 is the largest cash prize in American theatre given, and about 2,000 un-produced plays were submitted. [6] [7] [8] The award gave Harris the opportunity to have stage readings in regional theaters across the country and abroad.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paula Vogel</span> American playwright

Paula Vogel is an American playwright. She is known for her provocative explorations of complex social and political issues. Much of her work delves into themes of psychological trauma, abuse, and the complexities of human relationships. She has received the Pulitzer Prize as well as nominations for two Tony Awards. In 2013 she was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Suzan-Lori Parks</span> American playwright (born 1963)

Suzan-Lori Parks is an American playwright, screenwriter, musician and novelist. Her play Topdog/Underdog won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002; Parks was the first African-American woman to receive the award for drama. She was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine in 2023.

Will Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, New York. His play, Thom Pain was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Drama in 2005. His play The Realistic Joneses appeared on Broadway in 2014, where it received a Drama Desk Special Award and was named Best Play on Broadway by USA Today, and best American play of 2014 by The Guardian. His play The Open House was presented Off-Broadway at the Signature Theatre in 2014 and won the Obie Award for Playwriting as well as other awards, and was on both TIME Magazine and Time Out New York 's Top Ten Plays of 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Breuer</span> American theatre director (1937–2021)

Esser Leopold "Lee" Breuer was an Obie Award-winning and Pulitzer-, Grammy-, Emmy- and Tony-nominated American playwright, theater director, academic, educator, filmmaker, poet, and lyricist. Breuer taught and directed on six continents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soho Repertory Theatre</span> American Off-Broadway theater company

The Soho Repertory Theatre, known as Soho Rep, is an American Off-Broadway theater company based in New York City which is notable for producing avant-garde plays by contemporary writers. The company, described as a "cultural pillar", is currently located in a 65-seat theatre in the TriBeCa section of lower Manhattan. The company, and the projects it has produced, have won multiple prizes and earned critical acclaim, including numerous Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Drama Critics' Circle Awards, and a Pulitzer Prize. A recent highlight was winning the Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement for "nearly four decades of artistic distinction, innovative production, and provocative play selection."

Gina Gionfriddo is an American playwright and television writer. Her plays Becky Shaw and Rapture, Blister, Burn were finalists for the 2009 and 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, respectively. She has written for the television series Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, FBI: Most Wanted, The Alienist, and House of Cards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matthew Maher (actor)</span> American actor

Matthew Maher is an American actor. He is best known for his roles in Bringing Out the Dead (1999), Dogma (1999), Jersey Girl (2004), Gone Baby Gone (2007), It's Kind of a Funny Story (2010), Grand Theft Auto V (2013) Captain Marvel (2019), Funny Pages (2022), Air (2023), and Our Flag Means Death (2022–2023).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Annie Baker</span> American playwright and teacher

Annie Baker is an American playwright, film director, and teacher who won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her play The Flick. Among her works are the Shirley, Vermont plays, which take place in the fictional town of Shirley: Circle Mirror Transformation, Nocturama, Body Awareness, and The Aliens. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2017. Her debut film Janet Planet released in 2023 to critical acclaim.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarah Benson</span> British director

Sarah Benson is a British director of avant-garde theatre productions based in New York. As a Director of the Soho Rep, a lower Manhattan-based theatre company with an "audacious taste in plays", she is notable for her "commitment to adventurous new plays with an experimental bent". She has been at the company since 2007, and during her tenure, the company has won numerous Obie awards and Drama Desk nominations.

Melissa James Gibson is a Canadian-born playwright based in New York.

Stephen Karam is an American playwright, screenwriter and director. His plays Sons of the Prophet, a comedy-drama about a Lebanese-American family, and The Humans were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2012 and 2016, respectively. The Humans won the 2016 Tony Award for Best Play, and Karam wrote and directed a film adaptation of the play, released in 2021.

Amy Herzog is an American playwright. She is known for her poignant and character-driven plays that explore themes of family dynamics, personal relationships, and the complexities of human experience. She has received a Drama Desk Award as well as a nomination for a Tony Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Branden Jacobs-Jenkins</span> American playwright (born 1984)

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an American playwright. His plays Gloria and Everybody were finalists for the 2016 and 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His play Appropriate made his Broadway debut as a playwright in 2023 and earned him his first Tony Award. His additional plays include An Octoroon and The Comeuppance. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2016.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucas Hnath</span> American playwright

Lucas Hnath is an American playwright. He won the 2016 Obie Award for excellence in playwriting for his plays Red Speedo and The Christians. He also won a Whiting Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jackie Sibblies Drury</span> American playwright

Jackie Sibblies Drury is an American playwright. The New York Times called Drury's 2012 play We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884–1915 "her breakout work". Her subsequent works include Social Creatures (2013) and Fairview (2018); for the latter, Drury received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

An Octoroon is a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. It is an adaptation of Dion Boucicault's The Octoroon, which premiered in 1859. Jacobs-Jenkins reframes Boucicault's play using its original characters and plot, speaking much of Boucicault's dialogue, and critiques its portrayal of race using Brechtian devices. Jacobs-Jenkins considers An Octoroon and his other works Appropriate and Neighbors linked in the exploration of theatre, genre, and how theatre interacts with questions of identity, along with how these questions transform as a part of life. In a 2018 poll by critics from The New York Times, the work was ranked the second-greatest American play of the past 25 years.

Lauren Yee is an American playwright.

Clare Barron is a playwright and actor from Wenatchee, Washington. She won the 2015 Obie Award for Playwriting for You Got Older. She was a finalist for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for Dance Nation.

Sarah DeLappe is an American playwright. Her play The Wolves premiered Off-Broadway in 2016 to acclaim. It received the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2015 and was a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. DeLappe wrote the screenplay for the 2022 film Bodies Bodies Bodies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Aleshea Harris</span> American playwright

Aleshea Harris is an American playwright, spoken word artist, author, educator, actor, performer, and screenwriter. Her play Is God Is won the American Playwriting Foundation's Relentless Award in 2016. In 2023, her play On Sugarland was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

References

  1. BWW News Desk. "Soho Rep. Announces Complete Casting And Creative Team For Aleshea Harris's IS GOD IS".
  2. Sukop, Sylvia (20 June 2016). ""Responding to a world which no longer makes sense": An interview with playwright Aleshea Harris". HuffPost .
  3. Chow, Andrew R. (31 July 2017). "Soho Rep Will Return to Its Longtime Theater With Two New Plays". The New York Times.
  4. "Describe the Night, Will Swenson, Dominique Morisseau, More Win 2018 Obie Awards". Playbill.
  5. ""Mary Jane" and "Is God Is" Achieve a Glorious Trifecta at the 63rd Obie Awards". Village Voice. 22 May 2018. Archived from the original on 13 August 2022. Retrieved 1 February 2021.
  6. "Playwright Aleshea Harris Wins Relentless Award". 23 November 2016.
  7. "American Award, Prestige Abroad for Aleshea Harris - Creative Pinellas". creativepinellas.org. Archived from the original on 2018-01-25. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
  8. Coakley, Jacob (24 October 2016). "Aleshea Harris Wins 2016 Relentless Award - Stage Directions". Archived from the original on 8 October 2018. Retrieved 1 February 2021.