Dear New York City Theater Dreamers, this message is for you.
I’ve had the absolute pleasure of living in Harlem all my life, going through programs and schools that loved the arts and treated them sacredly. I’ve always loved plays, always wrote plays, and will always write plays.
This year, I received my off Broadway debut when Soho Rep produced The Great Privation on 42nd Street. Getting off the 3 train coming from Harlem and seeing all the theater signs glowing in the dark and knowing that one of them was mine rocked my world.
When I first got whiff that Soho Rep had read The Great Privation, I melted. Soho Rep was a dream opportunity, and I thought I had to come into my first meeting with them with my best suit and a great speech about how ready I was. But their first question was: “Tell us about who you are and what your values are.” Then: “Tell us what you’re still trying to understand about the play.” Whenever I tried to talk about how thankful I would be for the chance to be produced at Soho Rep, Eric Ting said, “You have nothing to prove. Your work speaks.” I will always remember that advice. What turned out to be really remarkable for me as an early career artist was not just that my dream theater Soho Rep chose to produce my play, but the way that they produced it.
There was a transparent budget conversation breaking down hourly and weekly rates, the many collaborators on a show, the ever-evolving standards that Soho Rep holds themselves to, and their capacity. I’d never been taken through the ins and outs of money in this industry and it felt like the most intensive theater course I’d ever taken.
Soho Rep knew how much Harlem meant to me and found multiple ways for me to interact with my community, spread the word about the play, and support Harlem businesses.
They cared about protecting me alongside the nucleus of the play. They were always checking in, asking how I was doing, what I needed, how I wanted to receive their notes, even IF I wanted their notes.
Some of my favorite moments were hearing about the Soho Rep playwrights who came before me–Misha Chowdhury, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Hansol Jung–and all those playwrights’ relationship to previews, re-writes, reviews and all the different approaches people take to sustain themselves in this industry.
You see, the care at Soho Rep stretches far beyond the play of any one artist. It holds every artist and every one that Soho Rep works with including our amazing director Evren Odcikin, our incredible dramaturg Arminda Thomas, the stunning actors who starred in the play, the front of house team, and the folks who maintained the building.
