LITTLE ISLAND ANNOUNCES COMPLETE CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM FOR “THE GOSPEL OF COLONUS” RUNNING JULY 8-26 IN THE AMPH
Press Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Lee Abrahamian / Ellie Detweiler
rick@omdkc.com / lee.abrahamian@icloud.com / ellie@omdkc.com
212 695 7400
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
LITTLE ISLAND
ANNOUNCES
COMPLETE CAST AND CREATIVE TEAM FOR
“THE GOSPEL AT COLONUS”
FROM JULY 8-26
IN THE AMPH
WITH
DAVÓNE TINES
KIM BURRELL &
SERPENTWITHFEET
AND DIRECTION BY
SHAYOK MISHA CHOWDHURY
New York, NY (June 25, 2025) — Little Island today announced the complete cast and creative team for the innovative reimagining of Lee Breuer and Bob Telson’s “masterpiece” (The New Yorker), the Pulitzer Prize-finalist The Gospel at Colonus, directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury (Public Obscenities), with soloist performances by American opera singer Davóne Tines, American gospel singer and songwriter Kim Burrell, and R&B singer serpentwithfeet, playing in The Amph at Little Island from Tuesday, July 8 through Saturday, July 26.
Reflecting on his collaboration with Lee Breuer, composer Bob Telson said, “For more than 35 years, Lee and I presented our version of The Gospel at Colonus all around the world, with many of the same cast members. With Lee’s passing in 2021 and a dwindling cast in their 70’s and 80’s, it’s thrilling to pass the baton to a younger generation who will passionately update the powerful message we created then.”
The complete cast of performers for The Gospel at Colonus includes Davóne Tines, Kim Burrell, serpentwithfeet, Stephanie Berry (Staff Meal at Playwright’s Horizon), Kevin Bond, Samantha Howard, Ayanna George Jackson (MJ), Brandon Michael Nase (Watchnight at Perelman Performing Arts Center), and Frank Senior. Members from James Hall’s Worship & Praise based in Flatbush collectively represent the traditional Greek chorus: Trenise Y. Bullock, Schanel Crawford, Jaquetta Fayton, Angie Goshea, Robyn McLeod, Niyoka Morgan, TJ Riddick, Vischon Robinson, Lenny VanCooten, Eugene Marcus Walker, and Darlene Nikki Washington.
The complete creative team includes co-music direction by Dionne McClain-Freeney and James Hall, associate direction by Sam Morreale, scenic design by David Zinn, costume design by Montana Levi Blanco, lighting design by Stacey Derosier, sound design by Garth MacAleavey, hair & wig design by Cookie Jordan, and Kirk Cambridge-del Peche as makeup consultant.
Original The Gospel at Colonus organist Butch Heyward leads the band, alongside musicians Bobby Bryan, Jackie Coleman, Clayton Craddock, Isaiah Johnson, Booker King, Taja Graves-Parker, Jason Marshall, Dionne McClain-Freeney and Kelvin Walters.
To download cast and creative headshots, please click here.
In The Gospel at Colonus, the epic myth of Oedipus is reborn as a Pentecostal ritual that remakes prophecy as testimony and brokenness as transcendence. A man condemned from birth searches for grace. A choir lifts him up. The congregation – the audience – bears witness to his tale. But here, tragedy is not an ending – it’s the road to deliverance.
General admission tickets for The Gospel at Colonus are $25 with a limited number of standing rail tickets available at $10. To purchase tickets and learn more, please visit www.littleisland.org.
Whether you’re a monotheist or a polytheist or no theist at all, it will speak to you,
and you might answer back, dancing and clapping and lifting your own voice.
– Alexis Soloski, The New York Times
“I left the theatre with my shirtfront drenched with tears and the perspiration of relief:
here was a portrait of black life – of black music, joy, and pain – that I could understand”
– Hilton Als, The New Yorker
Ancient Greek tragedy is reformatted with the musical and storytelling rhythms of the Black Pentecostal church
to bring us closer to the spirit of Sophocles’ art than the majority of academic revivals ever have.
– Charles McNulty, Los Angeles Times
Sitting directly in the Hudson River itself, Little Island opened in May 2021 and has since been enjoyed by more than 6 million visitors. In 2013, Barry Diller, in partnership with Hudson River Park Trust leadership, embarked on the unique opportunity to envision a solution for the repair and reactivation of Pier 54, which had been badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy. The park was designed as an entirely new type of public space for New York, one that would create an immersive experience of nature and art. Born from a collaboration of the UK-based Heatherwick Studio and the New York-based landscape architecture firm MNLA, led by Signe Nielsen, the park’s imaginative design offers all New Yorkers and visitors a new public space that is dynamic, captivating, and restorative.
Zack Winokur is Producing Artistic Director of the 2025 summer season at Little Island, which is made possible by a gift from The Diller – von Furstenberg Family Foundation.
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