August Wilson New Play Initiative
“I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.”
After his passing in 2005, Congo Square Theatre renamed The New Playwright Initiative to the August Wilson New Play Initiative (AWNPI). This program is designed to uplift, support, and give voice to the next generation of African American playwrights through produced staged readings and developmental workshops. The AWNPI serves as a means to advance our mission of being a haven for artists of color to challenge and redefine the theatrical canon by amplifying and creating stories that reflect the reach and complexities of Black culture. As Wilson himself said, " I write the black experience in America, and contained within that experience, because it is a human experience, are all the universalities.”
Since its inception, The August Wilson New Play Initiative has produced new works such as Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond, which went to Broadway and is currently being developed for HBO and Deep Azure by Chadwick Boseman. Most recent entries include: Ensemble Member Kelvin Roston’s Twisted Melodies, Lekethia Dalcoe’s A Small Oak Tree Runs Red, as directed by Harry J. Lennix, and Brothers of the Dust by Darren Canady–which won The American Theatre Critics Association’s Elizabeth Osborn New Play Award in 2012. Congo Square’s upcoming production, How Blood Go by Lisa Langford, also went through AWNPI in 2019 and is hit the stage in 2023.
By continuing this initiative, Congo Square will continue its legacy as innovators and leaders in the development of premier work from and by the next generation of great American playwrights.
Check back next year for when submissions open back up!
CURRENT WORKS
Kristiana Rae Colón, homan & fillmore
Kristiana Rae Colón is a poet, playwright, actor, educator, producer, curator, creator of #BlackSexMatters, co-director of the #LetUsBreathe Collective, the inaugural Sam Roberson Fellow at CST, and staff writer for season 4 of The Chi. Her current work through the AWNPI, homan & fillmore, goes beyond the traditional theatre model, into a hybrid performance model that activates the community to action through mutual aid and public/political education while providing tangible resources for healing through the arts as a lived experience.
Sydney Chatman, Sing a Black Girl’s Song
Sydney Chatman is a director, educator, producer, writer, and one of our playwrights in-residence through the AWNPI. In 2021, Sydney and Congo Square Theatre Company were recipients of the Joyce Foundation's Joyce Awards, a $75,000 grant supporting Sydney in the development of her new community-based theatrical work, Sing A Black Girl's Song, which explores the journey of healing from interpersonal and state-sanctioned violence. The development of this work stems from collaboration with an intergenerational group (of Black women and girls between the ages of 15+) through a healing and liberation circle.
PAST AWNPI WORKS
Stick Fly by Lydia Diamond
Deep Azure by Chadwick Boseman
Twisted Melodies by Ensemble Member Kelvin Roston
A Small Oak Tree Runs Red by Lekethia Dalcoe, directed by Harry J. Lennix
Brothers of the Dust by Darren Canady