World Premiere of ‘La Race’ Examines the Power of Collective Action And More…
Now Playing: Working Class Power!
By Joe Maniscalco with Dana Jacks
From New York City adjunct professors striking for a living wage to US railroad workers fighting for the right to call in sick — working class people across the country are increasingly feeling the power of collective action.
Playwright Bleu Beckford-Burrell’s La Race now playing at McGinn/Cazale Theater examines a particular community of working class people in Far Rockaway, Queens who come to the same stirring realization.
“La Race is talking about the power of people when they choose to make the change they want to see,” Working Theater Marking and Media Manager Coryn Carson tells Work-Bites. “It starts with someone losing their job.”
Since its founding in 1985, The Working Theater has dedicated itself to cultivating and producing working class theater for and about woking people. For La Race, the Working Theater partnered with Page 73 — the prestigious New York City theater group specializing in promising off-Broadway debuts.
“Through our partnership with Page 73 we’re having an opportunity to invite the [greater] theater audience to question what stories we should be telling each other and who’s stories should be reflected. But we’re also welcoming our [labor] audiences to know we are not the only theater that is a space for you — this whole [theater] community is yours as well,” Carson adds.
Of course, class consciousness and labor activism in post-COVID America are multi-dimensional things. As Beckford-Burrell, a first-generation Jamaican-American, has said, La Race is as much about helping to liberate women of color from “the boxes and labels placed upon us by those who wish to see us only be ‘strong Black women’” — as it is about fighting for systemic change.
All of La Race’s themes however, are reflective and emblematic of the Working Theater’s ongoing Five Boroughs/One City program which seeks to spotlight the artistry of communities far outside of the theater bastions of Manhattan.
Sliding scale ticket prices begin at $0.
La Race is directed by Taylor Reynolds and features Auberth Bercy, Naomi Lorrain, Vince Nappo, Christopher B. Portley, Stacey Sargeant, Shaunette Renée Wilson. Now through December 23, at the McGinn/Cazale Theater, located at 2162 Broadway@76th Street. Showtimes are Mondays - Fridays @ 7:30 PM and Saturdays @ 2:00 PM & 7:30 PM. Click here for tickets.