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Co-produced by India Blake / IB Productions Cecelia Joyce Johnson / Deep End Productions FROM THE ARTISTIC DIRECTOR A covered mirror. Mourning. Expelling our personal phantoms. These are what initially caused Azure D. Osborne-Lee to write their beautiful play Mirrors. Azure is a dazzling new force in the playwriting community, and New York Theatre Workshop has recognized this, too. We are so pleased that the World Premiere of Mirrors is happening at Next Door at New York Theatre Workshop. Our story begins in the fictional town of Etheridge, Mississippi in the summer of 1960 with Bird – a Black, queer woman (and the town pariah) who is mourning the death of her former love, Belle, and attempting to bond with Belle’s 17-year-old daughter, Alma Jean, who is now Bird’s ward. Though it began with an exploration of death rituals, Mirrors has become a work about the importance of love in the face of grief. And while it is funny and spiritual, it also is an unsparing reminder as to what happens when a larger community deems someone “unacceptable.” Unfair judgments. Isolation. Violence. Discrimination and prejudice at all levels of society are far worse for LGBTQ+ Americans of color. Mirrors is a personal story about death and life in the American South, but it’s also a poignant contribution to the ongoing conversation on social and racial justice, and about the love we find for ourselves and each other when we have the courage to look. At its heart, Mirrors reminds us of the importance of family and community. - Ludovica Villar-Hauser, Founder and Artistic Director of Parity Productions SYNOPSIS Parity Productions Awards Ceremony & Celebration, October 16, 2019 at Theaterlab. Pictured (left to right): Ashley Noel Jones as “Alma Jean Pierson” and Suzanne Darrell as “Bird.” Photography by John Quilty. Set in the sleepy Mississippi town of Etheridge in the summer of 1960, Mirrors depicts the lives of three African-American women bound by love and loss and family, and the secrets of their shared past. When 17-year-old Alma Jean finds her mother dead, she must pack up her life and move in with her mother’s ex-lover, a woman she doesn’t know. Her new guardian, Bird Wilson, is the town pariah and unused to sharing her home. Will mourning the death of a shared loved one bring Alma Jean and Bird together or push them further apart? THE CAST Joyia D. Bradley (she/her) (Louise Sterling) is happy to join the cast of Mirrors again. Recently, she finished production on Son (feature), EBP’s workshop production of &Cressidye based on Chaucer’s Troilus and Cressi- da (Pandarus) and Sextant Productions The Potemkin Play (Interrogation Officer). She is gearing up for her first directorial feature, Rex Unplugged, based on Oedipus Rex. Suzanne Darrell (she/her) (Bird Wilson) is a later in life MFA actor graduate from Pace University and a clas- sically trained Contralto. She is thrilled to be working on Mirrors with the Parity Productions team. Her stage credits include Katori Hall’s Children of Killers (Mama), Finding Home (Nattie) at the Billie Holiday, and the Obie Award-winning Harlem 9’s 48 Hours in Harlem C3’s - Where the Sun Don’t Shine, inspired by A Raisin in the Sun (Mother). A native of Bermuda, she dedicates this performance to her daughter, Cedar. SuzanneDarrell.com Anthony Goss (he/him) (Ray Johnson) is from Boston, Massachusetts. He studied acting at the Stella Adler studio of acting and Susan Batson studios in New York. He has appeared in productions throughout New York City and currently tours with the hit Off-Broadway play Black Angels Over Tuskegee. He looks forward to this next journey with Mirrors and is excited to be working with a wonderful cast and team! Follow him @antgoss for upcoming film/TV work. AnJu Hyppolite (she/her) (Mabel Mosley) (Mabel Mosley) Next Door at NYTW: Debut. Off-Broadway: The Johnsons (Michael), Rent Party (Jenny), The Passage (Revolutionary/Runaway), Rebelliousness (Cherry Turn- er), Speechless (Deviser/Lila/Puppeteer). Select Re- gional: Intimate Apparel (Mayme, Arty Award nominee), To Kill a Mockingbird (Calpurnia, Arty Award recipient), Mama Won’t Fly (Essie/Aunt Ardale/Kiki, Shellie Award nominee), Penthesilea (Prothoe), The Color Purple (Ol- ivia/Ensemble), Agamemnon (Cassandra), Fortinbras (Horatio). Hats off to this talented cast and crew! Let’s connect: @anjuhyppolite Natalie Jacobs (she/her) (Constance Jenkins) is a for- mer Division 1 All-American athlete who hails from Virgin- ia. After training at Studio Theatre in Washington DC, she relocated to New York City. She can be seen in various TV projects including the Emmy-nominated series Tough Love, and the current ABC drama series For Life. She is thankful to be a part of Mirrors with teammates who she now considers friends. Follow her artistic journey on IMDB and her life outside the arts on @Natty.Jae on In- stagram. Kayland Jordan (she/her) (Anabelle “Belle” Pierson) is a recent graduate of the BFA Acting program at Pace University School of Performing Arts. Her most recent onscreen credits are Emergence (ABC) and Betty (HBO). Some of her previous stage credits include poetic play For Colored Girls When The Rainbow is Enuf at The People’s Forum and award-winning original play Fancy Maids produced by Ken Davenport’s Rave Festival. Ashley Noel Jones (she/her) (Alma Jean Pierson) is an actor/musician and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School. FILM: Anomaly; Storm Before The Quiet; Grammy- nominated James Bay’s album/short film Electric Light; Limetown, Season 2. THEATER: The Public, A.R.T/ NY, Williamstown, Corkscrew Festival, NOLA Project. MUSIC: Mercury Lounge, World Cafe Live, Rockwood, featured by Instagram, AirBNB, Hilton Hotels. Social media: @noelashley THE TEAM Azure D. Osborne-Lee (he/him, they/them) (Playwright) is an award-winning Black queer theatre maker whose work has been produced and/or developed by Parity Productions, Trans Lab @ The Public and WP, The Tank, The Flea The- ater, BAX|Brooklyn Arts Exchange, BAM, JACK, Rising Circle Theater Collective, The Fire This Time Festival, Horse Trade Theater Group, The Castillo Theatre, The New Ohio Theatre, National Black Theatre, Freedom Train Productions, Downtown Urban Arts Festival, Lambda Literary Foundation, The Helix Queer Performance Network, and regionally. azureosbornelee.com Azure D. Osborne-Lee is a 2018 winner of our Annual Parity Commission. Ludovica Villar-Hauser (she/her) (Director, Artistic Director) Ludovica’s directorial accomplishments include the New York premiere of Otho Eskin’s Duet, the world premieres of Teresa Lotz’s She Calls Me Firefly and 2017 Commission Winner Mêlisa Annis’s Charlie’s Waiting, the Off-Broadway world premiere and West End premiere of Gregory Murphy’s The Countess (634 Off-Broadway performances), Philip Ridley’s Leaves of Glass, and Laura Pedersen’s For Heaven’s Sake!, among many other critically-acclaimed productions. Ludovica was the youngest woman ever to simultaneously produce and direct in London’s West End. In the New York theatre industry, she was also one of the few women to own and operate her own theatre — she ran The Greenwich Street Theatre for 17 years. She served on the Board of the League of Professional Theatre Women from 2009-2018 and is currently the Producer of its Oral History Project at NYPL for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Jennifer Kranz (she/her) (Producing Artistic Director, Company Dramaturg) An Emmy and Tony award-nominated producer, Jennifer Kranz has spent two decades in production and marketing in entertainment. She was a senior executive at AMC Networks and has held tenures at Cablevision, Time Warner, Lifetime Television and NBC Universal, where she worked on Top 5 TV businesses such as USA Network, Sci Fi Channel, Lifetime and Lifetime Movie Network. Along with the work she does proudly for Parity, Jennifer is also Director of Creative Development for Rosalind Productions, a commercial theatrical producing company. She continues to act as a senior-level consultant to the media industry. In addition, Jennifer has been a co-producer on Broadway, earning a Tony nomination and Drama Desk Award for the The Prom. Jennifer has a Masters degree from New York University. She is a voting member of the TV Academy of Arts and Sciences and a board member of NY-based influencer theater company Page 73. Jamie Nicole Larson (she/her) (Set Designer) is a 2nd generation queer femme designer, activist, and educator who specializes in scenic and costume design as well as social justice education surrounding queer families. An alumnus of NYU Tisch’s Prod. & Design BFA program, her recent designs include You Wouldn’t Expect (American Bard Theater Company), Mirrors (Downtown Urban Arts Festival), Glass (Roots and River Productions), Delirium’s Daughters (Theatre Row, Studio), and The Fire This Time Festival’s 2014 and 2015 seasons. Sabrina Bianca Guillaume (she/her) (Costume Designer) is a Brooklyn native, freelance costume designer for dance, theatre, and all dress up affairs. She received her MFA in Design & Technical Theater at Brooklyn College (2017). Selected works include: Black Exhibition (The Bushwick Starr), Big Green Theater (The Bushwick Starr), Venus (Waterwell Productions), The Drama League Directorfest 2019 (New Ohio), Design Wing of the Great Plains Theatre Conference, Cute Activist (The Bushwick Starr), Ducklings (JACK). SabrinaBianca.com Miriam Nilofa Crowe (she/her) (Lighting Designer) recently designed the world premieres of Teenage Dick (Ma Yi + The Public), and Kennedy (St. Clements Church). Other recent productions include, in DC, The Children (Studio Theatre) and, in New York, Charlie’s Waiting (Parity Productions), Hurricane Party (The Collective NY), SeagullMachine, and home/sick (The Assembly). She is a founding member of Wingspace Theatrical Design, has an MFA from Yale, and is an adjunct at NYU Tisch Drama.