Broad Street Review, The Podcast

ABOUT BRIYANA D. CLAREL

Briyana D. Clarel – is a Black queer theatre artist, writer, and educator passionate about musical theatre, mangoes, and memoirs. Briyana is the host of A Very Virgo Virtual Show and the founder of The Starfruit Project, a platform supporting radical healing and brilliant growth through creativity. Briyana’s poetry and prose are published in TAYO Literary Magazine, cavity, Black Youth Project, MELANINzine, and print anthologies. As a director, performer, and playwright, they have brought stories to life with the Painted Bride Art Center, Shoe Box Theatre Collective, Theatre Evolve, Dixon Place, Broad Views on Broadway, Cabernet Cabaret ATX, Philly Free Fringe, and more. Their solo show unboxed: a healing debuted at the 2018 OUTsider Festival. Briyana is a 2016 recipient of the Acts of Greatness LGBTQ Youth Community Award, a 2020-2021 Core Playwright with InterAct Theatre Company, and a 2020 Leeway Foundation Arts and Change Grantee. They are one-fourth of Philly sketch comedy team The Rhubarbs and a member of Ring of Keys. Born and raised in South Jersey, Briyana earned an AB in Sociology from Princeton University. They love sleep, ferns, and taro bubble tea. Keep up with their adventures at briyanaclarel.com and @briyanaclarel.

ABOUT DIRECTORS GATHERING and JAM

Directors Gathering serves directors to serve the theatre.

Directors Gathering (DG) is a membership organization that through the power of community consistently provides development, connections, and process-based opportunities for regional theatre directors.

(DG) is committed to creating anti-racist, inclusive, equitable, safe, accessible, and transparent spaces in all facets of our gathering.

JAM is a new approach to JAM. It's not just about the process of the director it's about directing as an experience. Directors can at times feel isolated so JAM this year is about bringing directors together to JAM! We've been affectionately calling JAM a mini residency this year.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: http://directorsgathering.com

Twitter: @DirectorsGather

Instagram: @DirectorsGather

ABOUT THE BRIDGE PHL

Fostering healing connections between our rich and diverse communities by encouraging openness and dialogue about perspectives on racial prejudice, privilege, inclusion, intersectionality, and bias.

About The Artists

Schulman and Behrend have been collaborating on bold new theater works since 2017, responding to and reflecting on questions of faith, loss, and the pep-zing-zap of life in between.

For Tickets and Information: https://fringearts.com/event/welcome-to-the-shiva-house/

ABOUT Brie Knight

Brie is an emerging Playwright based in Philadelphia and a member of the Philadelphia Playwright’s Lab, The Foundry. Brie earned her M.A in Theater from Villanova University, where she also served as a Graduate Assistant in the Theater Department. Her play PANCAKE QUEEN received the 2015 Sue Winge Playwriting Award from Villanova University and will be featured in PlayPenn’s 2017 Conference. PANCAKE QUEEN received its first reading as part of the inaugural Philadelphia Women’s Theatre Festival. It was at Villanova where she also developed her solo show, THE “N” WORD. She served as a Dramaturgy Intern at People’s Light, where she worked on WOODY SEZ. Brie’s works weave the fantastical into socially conscious, historically rooted stories, to illuminate societal issues and barriers around identity, race, class, and gender.

ABOUT PANCAKE QUEEN

In 1893 St. Joseph, Missouri, Nancy Green strives to make peace with her painful past so she may live her future as a free woman. When she finds herself employed by a local miller, Randolph T. Davis, to portray his new, revolutionary merchandising symbol, Aunt Jemima at the Chicago’s World Fair, her past experiences and future dreams collide. As Nancy fights to make a life of her own design, she risks being consumed by Aunt Jemima and the past she wants to leave behind.