Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm

Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm

Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm is a current member of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard and a recent MFA Playwriting graduate from the Catholic University of America. His play Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies will receive its World Premiere at Mosaic Theatre in Washington, D.C. this year and will be followed by the World Premiere of his play Br’er Cotton at Kitchen Dog Theatre in...
Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm is a current member of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard and a recent MFA Playwriting graduate from the Catholic University of America. His play Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies will receive its World Premiere at Mosaic Theatre in Washington, D.C. this year and will be followed by the World Premiere of his play Br’er Cotton at Kitchen Dog Theatre in Dallas, TX. His work has been developed with the Signature Theatre, Theatre J, Theatre Alliance, Endstation Theatre, The Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program. He was named a “Person to Watch” by American Theatre Magazine and a “Rising Star” by Variety. He was a finalist for the inaugural Relentless Award and London's 503 Theatre Award. He was named winner of bot the Rosa Parks Playwriting Award and the Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award at KCACTF 2016.

Plays

  • P.Y.G. or the Misedumacation of Dorian Belle by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: adaptation, comedy
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    Keyword: cultural appropriation, hip-hop + 4 more
    Genre: adaptation, comedy
    Keyword: cultural appropriation, hip-hop, reality tv, Pygmalion, Rapper, pop star
    FULL LENGTH - Dorian Bell is a big deal. He’s a Canadian pop sweetheart, and he’s ready to be taken seriously. So his people hire his favorite hip-hop artists—Black and Alexand, the ‘bad boy’ rappers of Petty Young Goons—to help him toughen up his image. They’re black, he’s white. They’re from Chicago, he’s from Canada. It’s all on reality TV. What could go wrong?

    Inspired by Shaw’s Pygmalion,...
    FULL LENGTH - Dorian Bell is a big deal. He’s a Canadian pop sweetheart, and he’s ready to be taken seriously. So his people hire his favorite hip-hop artists—Black and Alexand, the ‘bad boy’ rappers of Petty Young Goons—to help him toughen up his image. They’re black, he’s white. They’re from Chicago, he’s from Canada. It’s all on reality TV. What could go wrong?

    Inspired by Shaw’s Pygmalion, P.Y.G. is a blistering and entertaining look at cultural and racial appropriation in a fictionalized exchange of ideologies, vernacular, and alleged street cred.
  • Br'er Cotton by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Recommendations: 8
    ·
    Cast: 
    5
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: Cotton, black lives matter + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama, political, tragedy
    Keyword: Cotton, black lives matter, #blacklivesmatter, Confederate Flag, African American, Lynchburg, Virginia, Relentless Award Finalist, online gaming, cerebral palsy
    FULL LENGTH - Lynchburg, Virginia. The former site of a thriving cotton mill is now an impoverished neighborhood. Deeply affected by all the recent killings of young black men like himself, Ruffrino, a 14 year old militant, incites riots at school and online. More and more at odds with his mother and grandfather, the boys anger grows beyond containment while the family home literally sinks into the cotton...
    FULL LENGTH - Lynchburg, Virginia. The former site of a thriving cotton mill is now an impoverished neighborhood. Deeply affected by all the recent killings of young black men like himself, Ruffrino, a 14 year old militant, incites riots at school and online. More and more at odds with his mother and grandfather, the boys anger grows beyond containment while the family home literally sinks into the cotton field, and no one seems to notice but him.
  • Hooded or Being Black for Dummies by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Recommendations: 6
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    Cast: 
    8
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    Genre: dark comedy, drama
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    Keyword: hip hop, Tupac + 8 more
    Genre: dark comedy, drama
    Keyword: hip hop, Tupac, Nietzsche, hands up don't shoot, racism, black lives matter, black playwrights, trayvon martin, mike brown, Baltimore
    FULL LENGTH - Marquis and Tru are both fourteen year old black boys, but they exist in two totally different worlds. Marquis is a book smart prep-schooler living in the affluent suburb of Achievement Heights; while Tru is a street savvy kid from deep within the inner city of Baltimore. Their worlds overlap one day in a holding cell. Tru decides that Marquis has lost his “blackness” and pens a how-to manual...
    FULL LENGTH - Marquis and Tru are both fourteen year old black boys, but they exist in two totally different worlds. Marquis is a book smart prep-schooler living in the affluent suburb of Achievement Heights; while Tru is a street savvy kid from deep within the inner city of Baltimore. Their worlds overlap one day in a holding cell. Tru decides that Marquis has lost his “blackness” and pens a how-to manual entitled “Being Black for Dummies”. He assumes the role of professor, but Marquis proves to be a reluctant pupil. They butt heads, debate, wrestle and ultimately prove that Nietzsche and 2pac were basically saying the same thing.

  • Black Lady Authority by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Recommendations: 2
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    Cast: 
    7
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    Genre: comedy, drama + 1 more
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    Keyword: Race, race wars + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, political
    Keyword: Race, race wars, afrofuturism, Black women, theatre, activism, African American characters, stanislovski, meisner, stage magic
    FULL LENGTH - The year is 2020, and the Race Wars have left America all but decimated. Three women take refuge in a theatre; they take control of their destiny and devise a revolution that puts the black woman in charge.
  • Anacostia Street Lions by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Cast: 
    6
    ·
    Genre: comedy, drama + 2 more
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    Keyword: twins, afro futurism + 8 more
    Genre: comedy, drama, fantasy, science fiction
    Keyword: twins, afro futurism, afrofuturism, gentrification, algorithms, Washington D.C, Anacostia, black playwright, black cast, science fiction
    FULL LENGTH - Washington, D.C., 2049 AD: the feral cat population in Anacostia has been neutralized, and now the M.A.N. turns its attention to the “undesirables” in the human population. But twins Fable and Korinna and their Grandthang don’t intend to go down without a fight.
  • A Month of Sundays by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Cast: 
    3
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    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
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    Keyword: dreams, magic + 7 more
    Genre: drama, mystery/thriller
    Keyword: dreams, magic, psychic, southern gothic, African American, strong female lead, 1950's, pedophelia, Missouri
    ONE ACT - Nickel returns to Benjamin, Missouri plagued by a recurring nightmare.He seeks out his former lover, Cindy-- a "witchy woman", with a flair for interpreting dreams and reading the future. But in his absence Cindy has found an disturbing way to cope. She's plagued with a recurring dream of her own, and she intends to keep her secret by any mean necessary.
  • A'nat Dittni by Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm
    Recommendations: 3
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    Cast: 
    2
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    Genre: drama, fable/folktale
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    Keyword: legacy, family + 5 more
    Genre: drama, fable/folktale
    Keyword: legacy, family, black playwrights, Africa, slavery, folk tale, folklore
    10 Minute - Jeanette attends Ellis, her father, at his deathbed. He has an important family legend he must pass on to her before he dies, or the tale and its language will be lost forever. But Jeannette also has a confession to make.