Marissa Joyce Stamps. Image courtesy the artist.
Free with RSVP
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*In the event that advance tickets are sold out, an in-person wait list will open at 7 P.M.
Co-Presented with The Bushwick Starr
Since 2010, The Bushwick Starr’s annual Starr Reading Series has cultivated a diverse group of writers at all stages of their careers, who approach writing for the theater in thrilling and unexpected ways. Selected through an invited submission process by a rotating committee of curators, currently Jehan O. Young, Elizagrace Madrone, and William Burke, 4-8 playwrights are selected each year, and receive developmental support for a public staged reading of a new, usually unfinished, work. With The Bushwick Starr’s new permanent home currently under renovation, the 2023 Starr Reading Series will take place at, and is co-presented by, CPR – Center for Performance Research. Now in its second year, this collaboration unites the process-oriented missions of both organizations, and celebrates the incubation of new, experimental work in performance. The Starr Reading Series has previously supported new plays by writers including Whitney White, Clare Barron, Phillip Howze, Jackie Sibblies Drury, Haruna Lee, and many more.
Marissa Joyce Stamps: Letiche and The [Wondrous] Pursuit of Elvis
In Letiche and The [Wondrous] Pursuit of Elvis, New York City mother-daughter duo, Imara and Kal, are on a swamp tour on their New Orleans vacation. They find themselves led by a white captain on an all-Black boat of tourists. In the murkiness of their 75-minute tour, Kal finds herself itching and her psyche morphing in a place full of contradictions and turns to the alligators and their leader—the mighty alligator, Elvis—for some clarity.
Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Haitian-American NYC-based writer, director, and actor who creates vortexes that center, celebrate and amplify Black folks through an Afrosurrealist lens. Recent plays include You Can Tell from the Twisted Juniper (2022 Eugene O'Neill NPC Finalist; Chautauqua Theatre Company‘s 2021 New Play Workshop; The Workshop Theater's Fall 2020 Writers Intensive), Blue Fire Burns the Hottest (Exponential Festival 2022; The Orchard Project’s 2021 Performance Lab), deadbodydeadbodydeadbody (Ars Nova ANT Fest 2022), Being Up in Here and All the Other Businesses that Don't Concern You (The Brick Aux 2022), and Techno Paper Planes (Moxie Arts Moxie Commission 20/21). She is also a frequent collaborator of The 24 Hour Plays. Marissa has also collaborated with The National Black Theatre, The Public, The Fire This Time Festival, Conch Shell Productions, Dixon Place, Irondale, New Ohio Theatre, Keen Company, The Wild Project, Playwrights Downtown, BUFU, and more. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild. Marissa serves as The Workshop Theater's Literary Manager. She also teaches English and is currently studying MFA Playwriting at Brooklyn College with Haruna Lee and Dennis A. Allen II, where she was a Rona Jaffe Foundation 2021-2022 Fellow. She is also an NYU alum in BFA Drama and BA Journalism. marissajoycestamps.com
Additional Starr Reading Series programs:
Tues, March 28 at 7:30 P.M.
Alba Delia Hernández: I've Been Giving Puerto Rican History Lessons for Free
Weds, March 29 at 7:30 P.M.
Divya Mangwani: The Nation Needs to Know
Mon, April 3 at 7:30 P.M.
Daniella De Jesús: GOOEY’S TOXIC AQUATIC ADVENTURE at Wasteland!™ (presented by amazon)
Tues, April 4 at 7:30 P.M.
Maya Lawson: For Du
Weds, April 5 at 7:30 P.M.
Jesús I. Valles: untitled table play
The Bushwick Starr is grateful to partner with CPR in co-presenting and hosting the annual Starr Reading Series as they build their new permanent home in Bushwick! The grand opening of The Bushwick Starr’s new venue will take place in about a year, but you can be a part of the celebration today! Please consider joining the Starr Giving Galaxy, a community of donors, friends, and audiences making an ongoing commitment to the Starr's future. Your support will help our artists create groundbreaking new performances, and establish a lasting home for the arts and culture in North Brooklyn for all to enjoy.