Sydney Chatman
Congo Square Theatre is thrilled to have director, educator, producer, and writer, Sydney Chatman as one of our playwrights-in-residence through the August Wilson New Play Initiative. In 2021, Sydney Chatman and Congo Square Theatre Company were announced as recipients of the Joyce Foundation's Joyce Awards. This $75,000 grant supports Chatman in the development of a new community-based theatrical work, Sing A Black Girl's Song, exploring the journey of healing from interpersonal and state-sanctioned violence. Chatman’s established artistic practice draws from an inquiry-based approach while leaning on ancestral connections, Black feminist theory, community interviews, movement, historical research, music, poetry, and spiritual traditions.
SING a black girl’s song
Through the development of Sing A Black Girl's Song, Chatman will devise a new play in collaboration with an intergenerational group (of Black women and girls between the ages of 15+) through a healing and liberation circle. The circle will be supported by two licensed therapists and will assist participants in building a safe community while investigating themes of the new play through monthly discussions, readings, and journaling. The generative process is designed to aid in rewriting a new narrative for their lives while reclaiming their joy and power.
“I believe in theatre’s unique ability to shine light on the injustices of our world, as well as its capacity to bring joy—this process seeks to center the voices of the Black women and girls whose stories have too long gone unheard.”
Background & Previous Works
Sydney Chatman (Black Girls Can Fly) uses theater as her medium to conjure hope, justice, freedom, and joy. Led by ancestral guidance and intergenerational wisdom; she directs, educates, produces, and writes work that seeks to heal her community. Chatman is a NYTW/Golden & Ruth Harris Commission, Joyce Award, AfricanAmerican Arts Alliance Award, and 3Arts Make a Wave winner.
Her theater credits include New York fellowships with Stage Directors and Choreographers Workshop Foundation (SDC), the Lincoln Center's Director’s Lab, and the Goodman Theatre Maggio Directing Fellowship. Chicago theater credits include the Goodman Theatre, TimeLine Theatre Company, Court Theatre, Congo Square Theatre Company, and eta Creative Arts; Louisville: StageOne Family Theatre; Indiana: Indiana University Northwest.
Chatman has created theatrical performances and collaborations with the MCA of Chicago, Adler Planetarium, Hyde Park Jazz Festival/Back Alley Jazz, The Reva and David Logan Center, Court Theatre, Prop Theater, Victory Gardens Theater, and WakandaCon. In 2008 she founded The Tofu Chitlin’ Circuit and created innovative programming called the A La Carte and the Tuxedo Junction.
She is a featured artist in Black Theater is Black Life: An Oral History of Black Theater in Chicago 1997-2010. Her plays, Black Girls (Can) Fly!, And Words Were Her Weapon: A Tribute to Ida B. WellsBarnett, The Duty of the Youth, Violence Just Don’t Understand, and Judgment are a testament to her admiration and respect for young people. She has been a theatre teacher for 19 years, where she shares space with young people by providing a foundation of agency and love.