Spring Gala
Honoring Berwin Lee Brown New York / London Playwrights
Celebrating 2021 Berwin Lee Brown Playwrights Award Winner Raja Feather Kelly
Directed by Cheo Bourne
Directed by Cheo Bourne
Join us on April 15 at 6 pm for an unforgettable evening at the Edison Ballroom honoring the Berwin Lee Brown New York / London Playwrights and celebrating 2021 Berwin Lee Brown Playwrights Award Winner Raja Feather Kelly.
Honoree
The Berwin Lee Brown Playwrights Award was created to foster and promote the craft of playwriting in both the United States and the United Kingdom and to encourage the writing and production of plays.
Berwin Lee Brown grant awards to playwrights whose work has not yet been produced on Broadway or in the West End. Potential recipients are identified through recommendations from chosen theater companies in New York, NY and London, UK and recommendations from Berwin Lee Brown’s advisory board which includes Dominic Cooke, Lucas Hnath, Joyce Hytner, Cherry Jones, Mel Kenyon, Alan Mark, Donna Murphy, and Jon Stokes. For more information, visit berwinleebrown.org.
Raja Feather Kelly was awarded the 2021 Berwin Lee Brown Playwrights Award and was commissioned by Soho Rep. The result of this commission, The Fires, will receive its World Premiere production in May 2024. This surreal new play is set in a South Brooklyn railroad apartment in 1971, 1998, and 2021, and tells the story of three men trying to understand love: what it means, where to find it, and how to experience it.
About Raja Feather Kelly
Raja Feather Kelly is a choreographer and director, and the Artistic Director of the dance-theater-media company the feath3r theory, for which he has created 18 premieres, most recently UGLY Part 3: BLUE (Chelsea Factory) and the forthcoming The Absolute Future (NYU Skirball).
Kelly was a member of the 2017 – 2019 Soho Rep Writer Director Lab and choreographed the World Premiere production of Jackie Sibblies Drury’s Fairview at Soho Rep, which went on to win the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Kelly’s most recent works outside of TF3T are White Girl in Danger (Second Stage), Bunny Bunny (UC San Diego), and Scenes for an Ending for the Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. He choreographed the Broadway musical A Strange Loop (Lyceum Theatre, premiered off-Broadway at Playwrights Horizon), winner of two Tony Awards, including Best Musical. His Off-Broadway collaborators include Lileana Blain-Cruz, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Benson, and Michael R. Jackson. His work has been seen at Playwrights Horizons, New York Theatre Workshop, The Public Theater, La Jolla Playhouse, and New York Live Arts, among many other venues. He’s worked on two Pulitzer Prize-winning productions and has received a Princeton Arts Fellowship, three Princess Grace Awards, an Obie Award, an Outer Critics Circle honor, and many others. Kelly is the 2023-24 Tow Foundation Playwright in Residence at Soho Rep.
Performers + Presenters + Creative Team
Anthony Alfaro
Performer
Nick Alteri
Assistant Stage Manager
César Alvarez
Presenter + Performer
Alex Bechtel
Music Director
Lileana Blain-Cruz
Presenter
Cheo Bourne
Director
Arran Bowen
Assistant Production Manager
Jack Coen
Perfomer
Aislinn Curry
Production Manager
Jackie Sibblies Drury
Presenter
Liene Camarena Fogele
Gala Producer
Ahron Foster
Photographer
Aaron Gubler
Lighting Programmer
Lucas Hnath
Presenter
Cagla Karslioglu
Assistant Set Designer
Janelle McDermoth
Host
Nelson Mejia
Performer
Deb O
Event Designer
Mona Pirnot
Performer
Barbara Samuels
Lighting Designer
Laura Snow
Videographer
Amanda Spooner
Stage Manager
Amber Tamblyn
Presenter
Carmelita Tropicana
Performer + Presenter
Christian Warner
Performer
Emily Wells
Performer
Join the Gala
Ticket and table purchases for this year’s Spring Fête will directly support the production costs of the World Premiere of Raja Feather Kelly’s The Fires and will enable us to provide Raja and his creative collaborators with a living wage.
To submit your ticket or table purchase via mail, click here to download the reply form or contact terri@sohorep.org or 212-941-8632 x. 204.
Support
Can’t join the party but want to support the event? Tickets to Soho Rep productions like The Fires start at just $25, so donations account for more than 90% of our entire annual budget. Gifts of any size make a big difference at our theater and support all of our our productions, commissions, workshops and the Writer Director Lab.
Gala Committee and Sponsors
Berwin Lee Brown New York / London Playwrights, Allegaert Berger & Vogel, Alexandra Bowes & Stephen Williamson, Tracy Higgins & Jim Leitner, Tom Kirdahy & the Terrence McNally Foundation, Rick Kinsel (President, The Vilcek Foundation), Janice Lee & Stuart Shapiro, Patrick Ravey & John Coppinger, George Loening & Kimbrough Towles, Brooke & Dan Neidich, Montserrat Nicolas & Michael Miller, Jane & Daniel Och, The Producers of ILLINOISE & The Producers of LEMPICKA, Cindy Sherman, Carmen Rita Wong, Anonymous
Gala Supporters
Susanna Aaron & Gary Ginsberg, Vincent Alfieri & Kerstin Larsen, Cathleen Carmody, Diana Elghanayan, Aaron Glick, Kenneth & Susan Gordon, Mark Gordon Pictures, David & Beth Greenwald, Jeanne Donovan Fisher, Keith Fox & Tom Keyes, Dolly Hall, William Harrison Hill, Jane Lisman Katz, Ellen Kern, Elizabeth Kipp-Giusti, Ruby Lerner, Iris Marden, Alan Mark & Jeffrey Fraenkel, Carolyn & Stephen McCandless, Thomas Mingone, William Morris Endeavor, Sami O’Reilly, Robert Sinclair, Lawrence Sutton & Rick Titone, Gary N. Tannenbaum & Helen J Mills, Ann Tenenbaum, United Talent Agency, Rachel Weinstein & Jason Pizer, Lucien Zayan, Anonymous (1)
