CONCORD THEATRICALS ACQUIRES LICENSING RIGHTS TO “SLAVE PLAY,” THE MOST NOMINATED PLAY IN TONY AWARDS® HISTORY
Press Contact:
Rick Miramontez / Aaron Meier
rick@omdkc.com / aaron@omdkc.com
212 695 7400
Concord Theatricals:
Imogen Lloyd Webber
press.theatricals@concord.com
212 598 2265
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
CONCORD THEATRICALS
ACQUIRES LICENSING RIGHTS TO
THE MOST NOMINATED PLAY IN TONY AWARDS® HISTORY
“SLAVE PLAY”
BY JEREMY O. HARRIS
New York, NY (December 10, 2020) – Concord Theatricals is excited to announce that it has secured exclusive worldwide licensing rights to Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris, for its Samuel French imprint. The acclaimed new play, which recently received 12 Tony Award® nominations, the most ever for a play in Broadway history, will initially be released to professional theaters. For more information visit concordsho.ws/performslaveplay.
“Knowing that Slave Play, a work written with friends and small theatres in mind, is joining the work of idols like Adrienne Kennedy and Caryl Churchill at Concord Theatricals is still overwhelmingly humbling. In a time when the complexities of the Black American experience are being discoursed by citizens all around the world it is invigorating to know that my work will sit beside peers like Aleshea Harris and Antoinette Nwandu in deepening the global understanding of the Black American identity and our theatrical traditions,” said Harris.
“Samuel French has built a legacy as a publisher who leans into big ideas and intrepid, theatrical voices. Jeremy O. Harris is a brilliant, game-changing dramatist, and we are honored to support his vision with the publication and licensing of Slave Play,” said Amy Rose Marsh, Senior Director of Acquisitions and Artistic Development at Concord Theatricals.
Slave Play’s record breaking 12 Tony Award nominations surpasses the record previously set by Angels in America. In addition to Best Play, it has also been nominated for Best Director (Robert O’Hara), Best Actress in a Play (Joaquina Kalukango), two nominations for Best Featured Actor in a Play (Ato Blankson-Wood and James Cusati-Moyer), two nominations for Best Featured Actress in a Play (Chalia LaTour and Annie McNamara), Best Score (Lindsay Jones), Best Scenic Design (Clint Ramos), Best Costume Design (Dede Ayite), Best Lighting Design (Jiyoun Chang), and Best Sound Design (Lindsay Jones).
The Old South lives on at the MacGregor Plantation — in the breeze, in the cotton fields…and in the crack of the whip. It’s an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master’s House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip’s fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary’s big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.
Slave Play opened on Sunday, October 6, 2019 at Broadway’s Golden Theatre to rave reviews and was the best reviewed play of the year. Jesse Green of the New York Times called the play “one of the best and most provocative new works to show up on Broadway in years,” Aisha Harris said the play “reimagines that theater can give us.” David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter said it is a “ballsy, often ferociously funny original work.” Leah Greenblatt, in her rave review for Entertainment Weekly, exclaims, “Slave Play feels like a piece of lightning: a work that aims to strike hot, illuminate and, if it has to, burn the whole thing down.”
It was included in over 20 Best of 2019 lists including: New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, Time Magazine, The Hollywood Reporter, Time Out New York, EW, Out, Paper Magazine, The Guardian, Mic.com, Vox, and Broadway News.
Slave Play is also the recipient of the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences, and the 2018 Paula Vogel Award. The play was nominated for the Outer Critics Circle’s John Gassner Playwrighting Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play.
Harris is represented by ICM and Elia Management.
BIOGRAPHIES
CONCORD THEATRICALS is the world’s most significant theatrical company, comprising the catalogs of R&H Theatricals, Samuel French, Tams-Witmark and The Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection. Our unparalleled roster includes the work of Irving Berlin, Agatha Christie, George & Ira Gershwin, Marvin Hamlisch, Lorraine Hansberry, Kander & Ebb, Ken Ludwig, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dominique Morisseau, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Thornton Wilder and August Wilson. We are the only firm providing truly comprehensive services to the creators and producers of plays and musicals, including theatrical licensing, music publishing, script publishing, cast recording and first-class production. www.concordtheatricals.com
JEREMY O. HARRIS (Playwright) is a writer and performer living in New York City. His full-length plays include: the twelve-time Tony Award nominated Slave Play, which played Broadway’s Golden Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, and will have a run at Los Angeles’ Center Theatre Group (New York Times Critics Pick, winner of the 2018 Kennedy Center Rosa Parks Playwriting Award, the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award, and The Lotos Foundation Prize in the Arts and Sciences), Daddy (Vineyard Theatre/The New Group), Xander Xyst, Dragon: 1, WATER SPORTS; or insignificant white boys (published by 53rd State Press), Black Exhibition (Bushwick Starr), and the upcoming A Boy’s Company Presents: “Tell Me If I’m Hurting You” (Playwright’s Horizons). His work has been presented or developed by Pieterspace, JACK, Ars Nova, The New Group, New York Theatre Workshop, Performance Space New York, and Playwrights Horizons. Harris co-wrote A24’s upcoming film Zola with director Janicza Bravo, is developing a pilot at HBO, and is a co-producer on their Emmy Award-winning series “Euphoria.” He has produced Michael Breslin and Patrick Foley’s multi-camera experimental theater work Circle Jerk and the virtual production of Will Arbery’s Heroes of the Fourth Turning. He is the 11th recipient of the Vineyard Theatre’s Paula Vogel Playwrighting Award, a 2016 MacDowell Colony Fellow, an Orchard Project Greenhouse artist, a resident playwright with Colt Coeur, and is under commission from Lincoln Center Theater and Playwrights Horizons. Harris is a graduate of the Yale MFA Playwrighting Program.
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