A musical development workshop with 2 presentations:
NY Theatre Barn
Wednesday, October 21st, 2020
7pm EST
Zoom
DarkZoom 17
Thursday, October 29th, 2020
9pm EST
Zoom
Meet the Creatives
Featuring (in alphabetical order):
Tristan - Corey Barrow*
Ensemble - Tayler Harris*
Ensemble - Tyler McKenzie*
Ensemble - Max Morter
Fari - Alaina Newell
Ensemble - Caleb Spainhour
Ensemble - Marthaluz Velez*
Kuwasi - HK Wall
Written by AriDy Nox & Brandon Webster
Directed by Zhailon Levingston
Music Directed by Ike Webster
Sound Engineering by Matt Williams
Film Editing by Hallie Griffin †
Line Producing by Ashlee Wasmund †
Production Stage Management by Ashani Smith
Assistant Stage Management by Julia Kopocs
† represents member of New Light Theater Project
* represents alumni of Western Carolina University
About the Musical
It is the night before the Apocalypse and Fari, an Android-Unit turned space-time-continuum anarchist is at the center of the devastation. This new musical features a genre-bending score and time-twisting book.
Development workshop in partnership with
AriDy Nox, Book Writer
AriDy is a multi-disciplinary black femme storyteller and social activist with a variety of forward-thinking creative works under her/their belt including the sci-fi operetta Project Tiresias (2018), the ancestral reckoning play A Walless Church (2019), the afrofuturist ecopocalypse musical Metropolis(2019), and many others. AriDy creates out of the vehement belief that creating a future in which
marginalized peoples are free requires a radical imagination. Their tales are offerings intended to function as small parts of an ancient, expansive, awe-inspiring tradition of world-shaping, created by and for black femmes. As a graduate of the Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program at Tisch School of the Performing Arts at NYU and a beneficiary of the Emerging Writer’s Group at the Public Theatre, she has been inordinately privileged to share the workings of her imagination among a vast array of inspiring and supportive artists
of various radical backgrounds throughout the city.
Brandon Webster, Music & Lyrics
Brandon is an NYC Composer, Dramaturg and Storyteller committed to telling afro-futurist & afro-surrealist stories that center radical ideas, joy as freedom, and the possible impossibilities of everyday life. With work like HEADLINES (2016): a contemporary tale inspired by August Wilsons "Joe Turner's Come and Gone", METROPOLIS (2019): the sweeping afro-futurist epic Musical chronicling the ecopocalypse and "HAZE & FIASCO" (2020): a afro-surrealist interrogation of toxic masculinity and experiment on musical theater form; he continues to challenge traditional musical form, structure, and sound in order to push the canon of musical theater forward. Often described as "fusing psychedelic soul flourishes with alt-R&B nuances to create a sonic smorgasbord of seething rage and remorse" he blends genres to create a bridge from Black culture to American Theater for Black audiences. He is an alumnus of the 2013 class of BMI Musical Theater Workshop, a 2017 MCC Theater Artistic Fellow, and a MTF MAKER cohort 1 and has had the pleasure of working regularly as a dramaturg for playwrights across the country and adjudicating for playwriting competitions on a city wide and national scale.
Zhailon Levingston, Director
Zhailon is a performing artist, director, writer and producer living in New York City. He received his BFA in Musical Theatre from AMDA college in Los Angeles where he co- wrote and produced the musical "16 Bars". Zhailon made his professional stage debut in the Los Angeles premier of The Christians (pastor Joshua u/s) at the Mark Taper Forum. He made his NY stage debut in the 2016 New York Musical Theatre Festival performance of Illa: a Hip Hop Musical. After the death of Alton Sterling and Philando Castille, Zhailon started an arts and activism campaign called "Words on White". It's journey can be followed on his website, Youngamazingsouls.com, an online space for millennials he started this year. Zhailon can be seen in the Warby Parker ad campaign "A Thousand Pieces of Candy" and the independent film, The Stand.