The Subject by Chisa Hutchinson

​On Sunday, May 15, 2016, we performed Chisa Hutchinson's The Subject as part of our series The Second Century. An upstart documentarian builds his success on the death of one of his subjects and faces the consequences.
 
The Second Century is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

​CHISA HUTCHINSON's (Playwright) socially probing plays, which include She Like Girls, Sex on Sunday, The Subject, Dead & Breathing, and Somebody's Daughter among others, have been presented by such venues as City Parks' Summerstage, the Lark, the National Black Theatre, the Contemporary American Theater Festival, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, and Atlantic Theater Company. She has won a GLAAD Award, the John Golden Award for Excellence in Playwriting, a Lilly Award, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, the Paul Green Award, a Helen Merrill Award, and the Lanford Wilson Award, and has been a finalist for the highly coveted PoNY Fellowship. She has also been a Lark Fellow, a Dramatists Guild Fellow, a resident at the William Inge Center for the Arts a New York NeoFuturist, and a staff writer for the Blue Man Group. Currently, she is a Humanitas Fellow, Resident Playwright at Second Stage Theatre, and a proud third-year member of New Dramatists. BA, Vassar College. MFA NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

KRISTIN HORTON (Director) is a director primarily interested in developing new work, re-imagining classics, and producing public events that create forums for dialogue and action concerning urban democracy and the arts. Her new play collaborations have appeared at the Contemporary American Theater Festival, Working Theater, HERE, NYC Summerstage, William Inge Playwrights' Festival, The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis, and Workhaus Collective, among others. She has a long-time association with the Lark Play Development Center, where she has directed as part of its many programs, including the US–Mexico Exchange, Playwright's Week, and Barebones Series. At the Lark, she has worked with a diverse range of writers including Rajiv Joseph, David Henry Hwang, Samuel D. Hunter, Lisa Kron, Chisa Hutchinson, Katori Hall, Steve Drukman, and Lloyd Suh. Horton began her theatre career in the mid-90s as a member of the Living Stage Theatre Company, the groundbreaking social change theatre of Arena Stage. In Washington, DC, she also produced adult education programs for the Kennedy Center's 1999–2000 season. A recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts/TCG Career Development Program for Directors, she has also received fellowships from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Sundance Theatre Lab. She is an Associate Professor of Practice in Theatre and Directing at New York University's Gallatin School.

CAST

​TOCARRA CASH (Leslie) was most recently seen in her co-starring role opposite Wendell Pierce in the Off-Broadway and New Orleans productions of Brothers from the Bottom, a performance that earned her an AUDELCO Award in 2015 for Best Supporting Actress. She was also just seen co-starring in an episode of The CW's Younger in February. Her other Off-Broadway credits include Playing with Fire and The Fabulous Miss Marie. She has performed in dozens of Off-Off-Broadway and regional productions. Other film and TV credits include ATL (Warner Bros.), Blue Car (Miramax), Rosy, and Hands to the Sky. Commercial credits include Time Warner Cable and New York Lotto. Toccarra is also a Media Literacy Facilitator for HBO's Young Media Minds Program, a Resident Artist of The Cell Theatre, and a recipient of the Princess Grace Award for Acting. Upcoming: Royal Pains (USA Network) this summer. BA, Spelman College. MFA in Acting/Directing, University of Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC). Twitter and Instagram: @toccarracash.

​​BEN CHASE's (Phil) New York theatre credits include [A]Loft Modulation (Access Theater), May 39th (Drama League/TBG), Un-Tamed (National Black Theatre), The Sun Experiment (New York International Fringe). Regional: The Comedy of Errors and Red Velvet (Shakespeare & Company), Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike (Syracuse Stage), Two Gentlemen of Verona and Julius Caesar (Shakespeare on the Sound), A Christmas Carol (Trinity Rep), Romeo and Juliet (Commonwealth Shakespeare Company). Readings and workshops include Naked Angels, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, MCC, and the Lark. Film: Jim: The James Foley Story, Lazarus Rising, Maybe in Moscow. TV: Mysteries of Laura, Difficult People. MFA, Brown/Trinity.

​SIDIKI FOFANA (Malcolm) hails from Coyah, Guinea. He has appeared in numerous Off-Broadway theatres in a variety of roles. Recipient of the 2012 AUDELCO Rising Star Award. Theatre credits include the world premiere of Amiri Baraka's last play Most Dangerous Man in America (New Federal Theatre), Children of Killers (Castillo Theatre), The Legend of Buster Neal (Billie Holiday Theatre/National Black Theatre Festival), No Place to Call Home (Paul Robeson Theater), Promised Land (T. Schreiber Studio), NoWhere in America (Kirk Theatre/Keen Teens), Finding Home (Billie Holiday Theatre), The Envelope (Gallery Players/Black Box New Play Festival), Stained Glass (Metropolitan Playhouse), and The Poll Tax Matter (Metropolitan Playhouse/Transcendental Festival). Film and TV credits include Conjure, Blue Bloods (CBS), Celebrity Ghost Stories (Lifetime), Deeper Than Rap, Black Actress, Debt to Society, Chaos Theory, The Bodega, Love True, and Missing Picture. Music videos include Freeway's hit single 'Know What I Mean' and Gaetan Roussel's 'Dis-Moi Encore Que Tu M'aimes'. Twitter: @sidiki_fofana.

​ASHLEY NOEL JONES (Marley) works as a musician and actor in New York and around the country. She has performed in short films, Off-Broadway, and regional theatre: Public Theater, Ohio Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, The NOLA Project in New Orleans, and more. Ashley has released her debut EP and performed at music venues along the East Coast including the Mercury Lounge, World Cafe Live, Rockwood Music Hall, and others. She currently is writing and recording a new EP to be released later this year. BFA in Acting and Africana Studies, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

​STUART LUTH (Jack), an actor and producer, has been fortunate to perform in some of the greatest venues in the world, from the Public Theater in New York to the Old Vic in London, working with artists such as Kevin Spacey, Eve Best, Stanley Tucci, and Meryl Streep. His work on screen includes Turn: Washington's Spies on AMC, Awake (starring Rosario Dawson), and Dear Harvard (New York Television Festival Best Drama). He and his wife Viviana Leo run Morning Dove Films, which makes feature films that drive social change. Their first film, White Alligator, screened widely across the U.S. and in Europe, and they are now at work on their second: Blue for Boy, a comedy about abortion rights. They are expecting their first child this summer.

​ANALISA veleZ (Jess)'s most recent roles have been Paola in Jose Rivera's Paola and Andrea at the Altar of Words (Poetic Theater Productions), Lucy in Inheritance (The Amoralists), and Dolphins and Sharks (The Fire This Time Festival). Film and TV credits include Master Class with Liv Ullmann as a YoungARTS alumna and Green Brothers. BFA in Acting, Florida State University.