Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks (Topdog/Underdog, 365 Days/365 Plays) will appear at two panels during the festival. One, "Art and Activism," will feature Parks in disussion with fellow writers Kia Corthron (A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick), Kenyon Farrow and Monica L. Williams, Oct. 10 at 1 PM at the Julliard School of Drama. The second will feature Parks and fellow Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage (Ruined, Intimate Apparel). That panel, "Plays and Playwriting," will take place Oct. 13 at 7 PM at a location to be announced.

Obie Award winners Eisa Davis (Passing Strange) and Colman Domingo (The Scottsboro Boys) will perform in the celebration "The New Black Music," along with Jeremy Alan Richards and Celli Pitt, Oct. 15 at 7 PM at BRIC Arts.

New plays will be read Oct. 16-17 at BRIC Arts, including Seize the Day by Kwame Kwei-Armah; Space by Keli Garrett; Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten by J. Nicole Brooks; Nannyland by Radha Blank; When January Feels Like Summer by Cori Thomas; Dispatches from (A)mended America by Godfrey L. Simmons and Brandt Adams; and The New Black Open Mic, a piece by the black members of the New York Neo-Futurists (Desiree Burch, Kevin R. Free, Nicole Hill, Chisa Hutchinson and Yolanda Kay Wilkinson) created especially for the festival and hosted by actor Chris Chalk (Fences).

For more information, visit thenewblackfest.org.