new york premiere
chiaroscuro
MAY 26 - JUNE 22, 2025
Chiaroscuro written by Black Arts Movement writer Aishah Rahman, is named after the Italian artistic term referring to a stark contrast between dark and light. The play explores the social implications of such contrast as it relates skin color, specifically within the Black community. The play is set on a love boat-type cruise ship for Black singles where "pretty" means light-skinned, all the men are dark, and Papa Legba, the African trickster spirit, is disguised as a ship steward.
Written by AISHAH RAHMAN
Directed by abigail jean-baptiste (Soul Series LAB Resident)
At The Flea (20 Thomas St, New York, NY 10007)
“pretty” means lightskinned.
all the men are dark.
papa legba is disguised
as the ship’s steward.
Leading Artists
AISHAH RAHMAN
Playwright
Aishah Rahman was a pioneering playwright, author, and professor. A graduate of Howard University and Goddard College, Rahman, was active in the 1960’s Black Arts Movement. She described her writing as adhering to a “jazz aesthetic,” and was the author of numerous plays, including dramas such as “Unfinished Women Cry In No Man's Land While a Bird Dies in Gilded Cage,” “The Mojo And The Sayso,” and musicals such as Lady Day A Musical Tragedy and The Tale of Madame Zora. Her plays were produced at theaters and universities across the United States including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Public Theater and The Ensemble Studio Theater. Rahman was also a professor of Literary Arts at Brown University, where she mentored many students. She also served as director of playwriting at the New Federal Theater in New York. Among her numerous fellowships, grants and awards are a special citation from the Rockefeller Foundation of the Arts for dedication to playwriting in the American Theater. Rahman released her memoir, Chewed Water in 2001 about her coming of age in Harlem. In its review, The New York Times Book Review wrote that Rahman “elegantly captures mid-20th-century Harlem in all its dwindling glory” and writes as if she is telling “ a familiar American coming-of-age story for the very first time.”
abigail jean baptiste
Director
abigail jean baptiste (all pronouns) is a theater maker, director, and writer born & based in New York City with familial roots in Haiti and the American South. Recipient of 2023-24 BOLD Directing Residency at Northern Stage, 2023 NYSCA Grant, 2023 Audrey Residency at New Georges, abigail was also a 2021 Project Number One Artist at Soho Rep., 2021 Bushwick Starr Reading Series Playwright, member of Roundabout Directors Group Cohort 2, and 2018 Lilly Award Winner. guided by questions around lineages of blackness, existential loneliness, feminization, and kinship, abigail’s work uses fragmented language and repeatable gestures in a search to build nonsensical ways of being. abigail builds creative processes grounded in laughter, collectivity, black politic, critical race theory, and ethical rigor. abigail has developed and realized theater pieces with The National Black Theater, Breaking the Binary, Clubbed Thumb, JACK, Mercury Store, New Georges, Northern Stage in Vermont, Page73, Playwrights Horizons, Princeton University, and Soho Rep. In 2020, abigail was named a “Powerhouse Women+ Directors Theatre Fans and Industry Pros Alike Need to Know” by Playbill. recent direction includes: THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND by Marcus Gardley (Le Petit Theatre in New Orleans), ‘BOV WATER by Celeste Jennings (Northern Stage), ANGELA DAVIS’ SCHOOL FOR GIRLS WITH BIG EYES by Thalia Sablon (Mason Gross School of the Arts, Rutgers), FEFU AND HER FRIENDS by María Irene Fornés (Atlantic Acting School). Currently: I AM SOUL Directing Residency at National Black Theater. Upcoming: KING JAMES (Northern Stage), TI JEAN & HIS BROTHERS (Princeton). B.A. Princeton University. abigailjeanbaptiste.org @abigailrosejb
