Off Off-Broadway theatre The Flea has unveiled its 2018–2019 programming, titled the Color Brave season. The lineup includes a new play by screenwriter and director Todd Solondz, a revival of Thomas Bradshaw's Southern Promises, and world premieres by Geraldine Inoa, Idris Goodwin, Kristiana Rae Colón, and Nick Gandiello.

“As artists, we must be unafraid to tackle the most difficult subjects. And in today’s climate the subject of race and color afflicts and then divides us all. Our season this year will be color brave,” says Flea Artistic Director Niegel Smith in an online statement, “and will tackle the subject of race and color head on.”

“We are not color blind and we must go beyond color conscious,” adds Carol Ostrow, producing director of The Flea. “Color brave is the defining characteristic of the plays The Flea has chosen to produce this season.”

Kicking off the season in August will be the world premiere of Scraps by Inoa, the inaugural recipient of The Shonda Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission. The play will look at how a victim's loved ones struggle to cope in the wake of a racist police shooting. Performances will run August 15–September 24. Smith will direct.

In October, The Flea will present the world premiere of Emma and Max, written and directed by Solondz (Wiener-Dog). Billed as a "satire of tragic dimensions," the play will look at the hopes and despairs of the city's well-off and worn-down. Performances will run October 1–28.

Next up will be the Off-Broadway premiere of Hype Man, Goodwin's hip hop play, which examines the hot-button issues of police brutality and social injustice. The play, which arrives in New York following a sold-out run in Boston, will run November 10–December 10. Smith will direct.

In 2019, The Flea will present the New York premiere of Colón's Good Friday, about a group of female students and their teacher trapped in a classroom during a school shooting (March 11–March 18, 2019), and a revival of Bradshaw's 2008 play Southern Promises, which draws from the story of the slave Henry Box Brown, who in 1849 arranged to have himself packaged and shipped to abolitionists in the North. Performances will run March 11–April 13 with direction by Smith.

For tickets and more information visit Theflea.org.