In case you didn't snag a ticket to the already sold-out run of Aleshea Harris' What to Send Up When it Goes Down at the upcoming Under the Radar Festival, Playwrights Horizons will bring back the critically acclaimed production for a limited run this summer. Directed by Whitney White and presented by The Movement Theatre Company, What to Send Up will play June 24–July 19 in Playwrights' Peter Jay Sharp Theater as part of the Off-Broadway theatre's Redux Series.
“Aleshea Harris’ play is an urgent, visceral, kaleidoscopic reckoning with racialized police violence in America—and a theatrical experience that demands our attention,” says Playwrights Horizons Associate Artistic Director (and incoming artistic director) Adam Greenfield about the return. Casting will be announced at a later date.
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What to Send Up When It Goes Down is a play-pageant-ritual-homegoing celebration in response to the physical and spiritual deaths of Black Americans as a result of racialized violence. Weaving facilitated conversation, parody, song, and movement in a series of vignettes, the show creates a space for catharsis, reflection, cleansing, and healing.
First seen in an extended Off-Broadway run at A.R.T./New York Theatres in the fall of 2018, What to Send Up has gone on to tour regionally, at the Woolly Mammoth in D.C. and American Repertory Theatre. The show will soon be seen at The Public's UTR Festival beginning January 8.
The production features set design by Yu-Hsuan Chen, lighting design by Cha See, costume design by Andy Jean, sound design by Sinan Refik Zafar, and original songs by Harris. Genevieve Ortiz is the production stage manager.
The Movement Theatre Company is co-led by an artistic leadership team comprised of David Mendizábal, Deadria Harrington, Eric Lockley, and Taylor Reynolds.
