Gay Mormon & Black Poet Featured In NYTW Solo Fest | Playbill

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News Gay Mormon & Black Poet Featured In NYTW Solo Fest Three one-person shows will comprise the 7th annual O Solo Mio Festival at New York Theatre Workshop, beginning Oct. 31. The trio of shows, two of which feature Emmett Foster, will play in rotating repertory.

Three one-person shows will comprise the 7th annual O Solo Mio Festival at New York Theatre Workshop, beginning Oct. 31. The trio of shows, two of which feature Emmett Foster, will play in rotating repertory.

First up is So...It's Come To This, one man's story of how he took a detour along the path to the Celestial Kingdom and ended up a jaded, middle-aged Manhattan queen in recovery. Foster, producer Joseph Papp's assistant for 18 years, has crafted the show from his memories of growing up a gay Mormon in Santa Monica, as well as from his Manhattan night life of men, drugs, sex and alcohol. Kirk Jackson directs.

Foster has also revised his solo, Emmett: A One Mormon Show, which centers on his years as "a California Latter Day Sissy, fighting the daily temptations of Satan -- cigarettes, Coca-Cola and the choir's Brother Curtis." Kirk Jackson directs this piece as well, which begins performances Nov. 6.

For the third O Solo selection, Dael Orlandersmith, creator of the Off Broadway solo, Beauty's Daughter, will present Monster, in which a young artist strives to end the cycle of abuse and internalized racism that's been handed down through three generations of women. Given the opportunity to sell the family's Harlem home, Theresa (Orlandersmith) must choose between freeing herself from ghosts of sins past or staying true to the building tenants who don't want to move. Peter Askin directs the show, which begins performances Nov. 13.

Founded in 1979, winners of a 1991 Obie Award for sustained excellence, Off-Broadway's New York Theatre Theatre Workshop vaulted into international prominence in 1995 as the producers of Rent, which later moved to Broadway and won both the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. For tickets ($25, $15 for 1-hr pre-show rush) and information about the O Solo Mio Festival, call (212) 460-5475.

-- By David Lefkowitz

 
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