Southern Rep Theatre has partnered with The Breath Project to select, curate, and archive work from multidisciplinary theater artists of color who are responding to racism and injustice. 

“Giving BIPOC agency to tell their stories is both a mission and passion of mine,” says Southern Rep’s Arts Education Coordinator Sacha Grandoit. “In the words of Lynn Nottage, ‘We’ve been present throughout history, but our voices have been neglected.’ Now is the time, more than ever, to have history be told from our creative lenses and perspectives. Now is the time for our voices, for our words, to be spoken, read, heard, and celebrated.”

The program will be curated and led by Grandoit and The Breath Project’s Artistic Director and Co-Founder, Gamal Abdel Chasten. Submissions to the archive must be a recording of a live performance of original work, created by an artist of color, and must be 8 minutes and 46 seconds in length. Chasten wrote and performed a theater piece entitled 08:46 addressing the amount of time a police officer’s knee was on George Floyd’s neck, causing his death. That play is available for viewing on the official website for The Breath Project, here.

The Breath Project plans to roll-out in three phases:

Phase 1: Call for entries to the Breath Project Archive, and a 2020 presentation of selected works in a virtual festival. 100% of any funds raised in connection with the 2020 virtual festival will be given directly to the curating and presenting artists;

Phase 2: Works produced for live audiences, in association with partner theaters across the country (as social safety guidelines allow);

Phase 3: The Breath Project is utilized as a tool for activism and education as an ongoing and living archive of this time in history.

The submission process for the archive is now open, and is currently open-ended, while submissions for the 2020 Virtual Festival (scheduled for Fall 2020) must be received by August 31, 2020. More information is available here.