Kyoung’s Pacific Beat, a peacemaking theater company based in Brooklyn, New York, invites you to an online screening of an excerpt from their new, work-in-progress NERO. NERO is a Shakespearean, five-act “streamplay” theatricalizing the history from George W. Bush’s War on Terror to our present day as the rise and fall of Nero’s Roman Empire.
Set in 64AD in Rome’s Palace of the Frogs, this “state of the nation” tragicomedy invites Black, Indigenous and People of Color to examine how white male supremacy is the root of American Imperialism. NERO is a hybrid event that includes both a screening of this theatrical production presented jointly with live, community-driven, cultural invocations of a post-white supremacist world. This BIPOC-centered community organizing invites local audiences to partake in this event not as passive spectators, but as citizens invested in unpacking the intersections of state violence and American war at a grass-roots level.
NERO is written/directed by Kyoung H. Park, with original music by Helen Yee, video design by Yoon Choi and Marie Yokoyama, costume design by Andrew Jordan, and features an ensemble of Black, Asian, Chicanx, Arab American and Muslim performers. NERO’s script was developed with the Ma-Yi Theater Company, Sol Project, New Ohio Theater’s Producer’s Club, supported by a 2019-2020 Dramatist Guild Fellowship and based on research conducted at the George W. Bush Presidential Archives in Dallas. NERO’s workshop production was generously supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council, MAP Fund, Jerome Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Venturous Theater Fund and its World Premiere is funded by the Ford Foundation.
Dates and Times Offered
Wednesday, May 25th 7:00pm-9:00pm ET / 4:00-6:00pm PT
Length
90 minutes - 105 minutes
60 Minute Screening
30-45 Minute Post-Screening Conversation
By the end of this workshop, participants will...
The screening of NERO and moderated conversation will ask participants: What is white supremacy and how are artists dismantling its narrative structures embedded in American culture? How do we activate our community to dismantle the power structures of white supremacy? How do we gather to learn what’s working and what’s not?
This workshop is ideal for:
Artists and cultural organizers of Color, especially queer APIA
Additional resources for this Circle:
What is White Supremacy? by Elizabeth Martinez
Heteropatriarchy and the Three Pillars of White Supremacy by Andrea Smith.
Accessibility:
Access requests, including interpretation and captioners, can be made during registration or by emailing Dustin Gibson at dustin@peopleshub.org.