September 26 – 29, 2019 and October 4 – 6, 2019
@ The South Dallas Cultural Center
Soul Rep Theatre rebrands its biennial new play festival in memory of the late and celebrated playwright and professor, Dr. Ted Shine. The inaugural festival will feature 10 new short plays written by local, national, and international playwrights around the theme “Black Men Illuminated”, in addition to a production of Dr. Shine’s celebrated one-act play, “Shoes”, which will only be performed for Thursday’s Preview performance and the two Sunday matinees.
An ensemble of over a dozen local actors will perform the eleven plays. The festival directors include Guinea Bennett-Price, Tonya Holloway, Anyika McMillan-Herod, Dee Smith, Ed Smith, and Richard Quadri.
The plays featured in this year’s dynamic festival include:
DEAR BRUH by Shemetra Carter
GAB IRISH-LIKE by Rex McGregor
HARLEM by Jared La’Pred
HONEST ABE by Camika Spencer and Kyndal Robertson
LESSONS FROM EINSTEIN by Eric Jones
LIKE FIREFLIES by La’Charles Purvey
THE PIVOT by Seth Freeman
THE WAY IT WAS/THE WAY IT IS by Erin Turner and Shelly Williams
TINDER-SUCKA by Inda Craig-Galvan
UNDER THE OVERPASS by Steven Young
The festival is appropriate for AUDIENCES AGES 13 AND UP.
Dr. Ted Shine (1931-2018) was a prolific playwright, educator and leader in the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and '70s who inspired generations.
Shine wrote more than 100 plays. His work was honored for its realism, plot twists and thought-filled commentary that brought a black perspective to the human condition.
His play Herbert III was included in the 1974 anthology Black Theater, USA: Plays by African Americans. Shine served as consultant to editor James V. Hatch and helped him update the anthology through the 1990s. The collection became a standard textbook that brought attention to black playwrights in theater classes across the country.
