Malvern-based theatre company People’s Light recently made an announcement of a new initiative aimed at developing works inspired by stories of the region’s LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC communities.
Supported by the William Penn Foundation through a grant to People’s Light, totaling $250,000 over the next 25 months, the new play and community engagement project titled Queerways, PA, will begin later this year for the organization’s fall and winter series.
The methods and process of the initiative are modeled after the theatre’s nationally-acclaimed New Play Frontiers Commissioning and Residency Program, a release states. And the launch point of Queerways, PA is the world premiere presentation of People’s Light Associate Artistic Director Steve H. Broadnax III’s new play, ‘Bones‘.
Additionally, three queer BIPOC playwrights will be commissioned to develop new projects that will eventually premiere on the People’s Light stage throughout this year-long activation.
And Queerways, PA is par for the course for the Chester County theater company. The creative organization already has its New Play Frontiers Commissioning and Residency program (NPF)—which has allowed the theatre to partner with a variety of cross-sector organizations and community groups to immerse nationally-renowned playwrights in the region’s history, heritage, and current issues since 2013.
The selected playwrights in the Queerways initiative, however will spend 18 months in a residency with numerous LGBTQ+ and BIPOC organizations in Chester County and the Greater Philadelphia area, all of whom will work on a new play inspired by their conversations through a series of one-on-one interviews, small group gatherings, story circles, partner- organized collaborative events, and public new play workshops, the release also states.
The whole process is meant to be collaborative, and throughout it all, The People’s Light team and artists featured in the projects will also conduct artistic evaluations with the playwrights as their projects take shape. On top of their commissions, the featured playwrights will receive 25 on-site, community-embedded residency days, as well as public workshops that will be hosted in community venues and at the theatre company.
And the reach of this program will also go well into next year, when the theatre will also develop and showcase work by the featured writers as part of the 2024 Kiln at People’s Light. This particular lab program first debuted earlier this year in the spring.
The first work from Queerways, PA, ‘Bones‘ will officially premiere on Sept. 22. And what will it entail?
Through the genre of “Black Horror,” Broadnax explores intimacy, identity, and inherited trauma among a group of black men who use high-stakes games of dominos to mask their need for emotional and physical connection, unaware of the larger forces that are threatening to consume them, the release explains. People’s Light is expected to announce the other three playwrights that will participate in Queerways, PA in conjunction with its presentation of ‘Bones‘ in September as well.
The entirety of this program from People’s Light will be under the direction of Broadnax, Associate Producing Director Molly Rose Houlahan, and Community Programs Creative Director Andrew Watring. All of whom queer-identified staff members. They are joined by Associate Producer and Director of New Works Lisa Portes. People’s Light Producing Artistic Director Zak Berkman will also be directly involved in the selection of writers and the development plan for each project.
To learn more about Queerways, PA and People’s Light Theatre Company (39 Conestoga Road, Malvern), visit peopleslight.org
