Truth: A Bio-Fictional Choreopoem
Pawtucket, Rhode Island | Theatre
History, Biography
Your support for this project will enable us to create a piece of theater that amplifies the biography and history of black female resisters and will put money directly in the hands of theater makers, creatives and performers who are underrepresented in theater-- BIPOC and women artists.
Truth: A Bio-Fictional Choreopoem
Pawtucket, Rhode Island | Theatre
History, Biography
1 Campaigns | Rhode Island, United States
Green Light
This campaign raised $55,728 for production. Follow the filmmaker to receive future updates on this project.
607 supporters | followers
Enter the amount you would like to pledge
Your support for this project will enable us to create a piece of theater that amplifies the biography and history of black female resisters and will put money directly in the hands of theater makers, creatives and performers who are underrepresented in theater-- BIPOC and women artists.
About The Project
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Truth: A bio-fictional choreopoem is a new play combining music, poetry, spoken word, storytelling, and dance to tell the stories of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and other lesser known women abolitionists. Truth offers a more historically accurate narrative of our nation, the origins of our current capitalistic system, and its resistors: Black Women Abolitionists.
The inspiration for Truth: A bio-fictional choreopoem comes from historical research and stories of Black female resistors whose stories have been intentionally hidden from history. The powerful, smart, strategic women continue to inspire us as we consider the world we want to build now.
The project started with seed money to begin writing and research from NEFA (New England Foundation of the Arts) and has continued with writers residencies at Linden Place in Bristol, RI, a grant from RISCA (Rhode Island State Council for the Arts). Gail and Josie began their research last summer by meeting with community and local historians. They traveled to areas of New England and New York to study and learn about slavery and liberation, particularly in the North.
As the playwright, Gail continues to research and has recently been researching marriages between enslaved people and emancipated people and how love could prevail under terrible circumstances.
(Truth's Executive Producer, Josie Bray, and Playwright, Gail Burton, on a research trip to Northhampton, MA where Sojourner Truth created a "utopian community," living and working with white and black abolitionists. This community provided a vital stop on the underground railroad as people escaped to Canada.)
At a time when African American history is being contested in the national curriculum and authors like the Nobel Peace Prize winner Toni Morrison are banned, TRUTH brings vitality to our experience of American History through poetry, movement, sound, story, and song.
We know that Black narratives and Black lives have been silenced and erased. It was illegal for enslaved Africans and their descendents to be literate. Bringing the words of self-emancipating women and Black Abolitionists to light is meant to make visible what has been erased.
We want TRUTH to hum and to move in our bodies and in our cells. We want our audiences to feel that too. We want them to sing with us, to move with us, and to celebrate the joy and liberation that comes from reclaiming our right to make History.
A choreopoem is a form of dramatic expression that combines poetry, dance, music, and song. The term was first coined in 1975 by American writer Ntozake Shange in a description of her play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Shange's attempt to depart from traditional western poetry and storytelling resulted in a new art form that doesn't contain specific plot elements or characters, but instead focuses on creating an emotional response from the audience. Many other artists have also innovated within the choreopoem genre, which has become increasingly popular among younger generations of artists.
(Left to right: Gail Burton (TRUTH playwright), Ntosake Shange, and Patricia Smith, circa 1993, preparing for the historic Darkroom Collective poetry series at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boylston Street).)
Between a first reading and a fully realized production, a workshop production is a vital and exciting step in the life of a new play.
A workshop production is staged in a form which does not include all aspects of a full production. For example, actors will have lines memorized and movement staged, but costumes, sets, and other elements may be absent or simplified. Characters may dressed simply in all black and not in specific costumes; stage boxes may be used instead of furniture; and stage lighting may exist in a most simple form.
A workshop production is a critical step in a play’s development to gauge audience and critical reaction to the piece. Following a workshop production, the work will often be adjusted and rewrites will occur before the play receives a fully produced and designed production, which would include a set, costumes, lighting and sound design, etc.
Gail A. Burton began her creative writing journey as a spoken word artist during the era of the Poetry Slam in MA established at the Cantab Lounge by Patricia Smith and Michael Brown who brought it from Chicago. She was a featured poet of the Dark Room Collective a black poetry collective founded by black Harvard College undergraduates as a means of continuing the legacy of the Black Arts movement.
The structure of the choreopoem led into forays with dramatic poetry and devised theater anthology work which eventually culminated in her first traditional play entitled Muses. Muses received a review in a special edition of the African American Review edited by theater scholar Paul Carter Harrison. Additionally, Burton received a Cambridge Peace Award for the play. Her work has been written about and reviewed in the African American Review, ArtsMedia, Proscenium, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, Bay Windows, Bay State Banner.
Josie Bray brings over two decades of work as a theatre and dance artist, producer, teacher, and facilitator. She is a lead Producer on Trevor the Musical (now on Disney+) and is a former faculty member of Emerson College. Josie has directed and choreographed Off-Broadway and Regionally in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well as at concert dance halls and universities. She worked as Assistant Director on the 2009 Broadway Revival of Ragtime.
Josie’s primary focus is on New Work. In 2019 Josie was awarded the Boston Foundation's LAB grant. Together with Gail Burton, Josie is the recipient of NEFA's New Works New England Grant for Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem.
Salisha Thomas Weiss is excited to be making her Producing debut with Truth. She recently made her off-broadway directorial debut with Incarcerated at New York Rep.
On Broadway, she performed in Beautiful the Carole King Musical and is currently in Once Upon a One More Time. She is the host of Black hair in the Big Leagues podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network.
Our team of Associate Producers bring a wealth of experience in varying capacities and a passion for the project!
We are raising money to fund a workshop production of TRUTH in 2024. This workshop production will engage professional directors, artists, and performers to bring TRUTH to life in front of an audience with movement and staging for the first time. We are approaching this from a grassroots campaign philosophy. And that's where you come in!
The largest portion of our budget, over 84%, goes to paying the salaries of all the artists working on this project, both on stage and off.
Please follow us on social media and spread the word. We are sharing the journey of developing a new play and telling untold history, and we’d love to be engaged with you as we forge this path.
If you are not in a position to contribute financially, you can make a big difference by liking our Facebook page, following us on Instagram, and sharing this campaign with others. It really makes a difference. Truly!
Here are some examples of posts you can share on Facebook and beyond if you need help getting started:
Contribute @truthplay.org_ and help bring an inspiring new play about Black Women Abolitionists to life! www.truthplay.org
Support the theatremakers behind @truthplay.org_, an inspiring new play about Black Women Abolitionists! - www.truthplay.org
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Director/Consutant
Costs $3,500
Creative direction of project
Writer
Costs $6,000
Writing the play
Producer
Costs $6,000
Production Work
Co-Producer
Costs $2,000
Co-Producer
Videographer
Costs $3,000
Videographer and Editing Services
Technical Director
Costs $3,000
TD
Stage Manager
Costs $3,000
Stage Management
Performers
Costs $15,240
Actors and Spoken Word Artists
Rehearsal and Performance Space
Costs $2,850
Rehearsal and Performance Space
Travel
Costs $1,000
Travel
Virtual Assistant
Costs $1,800
Virtual Assistant
Printing, Design and Equipment
Costs $2,610
Printing, Design, Equipment
Fees for Seed & Spark and our Crowdfunding Coach
Costs $5,000
Fees for Seed & Spark and our Crowdfunding Coach
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Gail A. Burton began her creative writing journey as a spoken word artist during the era of the Poetry Slam in MA established at the Cantab Lounge by Patricia Smith and Michael Brown who brought it from Chicago. Burton was influenced by this style of writing and expression and became a spoken word artist in cafes, bars, museums and bookstores. She was a featured poet of the Dark Room Collective a black poetry collective founded by black Harvard College undergraduates as a means of continuing the legacy of the Black Arts movement.
The structure of the choreopoem led into forays with dramatic poetry and devised theater anthology work which eventually culminated in her first traditional play entitled Muses. Muses received a review in a special edition of the African American Review edited by theater scholar Paul Carter Harrison. Additionally, Burton received a Cambridge Peace Award for the play.
Her work has been written about and reviewed in the African American Review, ArtsMedia, Proscenium, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, Bay Windows, Bay State Banner.
She is also an applied theater practitioner and Joker of theater of the oppressed at the Center for Theater and Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Josie Bray brings over two decades of work as a theatre and dance artist, producer, teacher, and facilitator. She is a lead Producer on Trevor the Musical (now on Disney+) and is a former faculty member of Emerson College where she taught Movement for Actors, Improvisation, and Dance.
Josie has trained Broadway actors from the casts of The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys, Beautiful, Les Miserables, Chicago and professional dancers from Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Pina Bausch, Los Angeles Ballet, The Bang Group, City Ballet of Boston, The Cleveland Ballet, Urbanity Dance Company, among others. Josie has directed and choreographed Off-Broadway and Regionally in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well as at concert dance halls and universities. She worked as Assistant Director on the 2009 Broadway Revival of Ragtime.
Josie’s primary focus is on New Work. She has nearly two decades of experience in devised theatre and dance production, has directed several readings and equity showcases in New York, and in 2019 was awarded the LAB grant from the Boston Foundation to create a new piece in movement theatre. Josie has nurtured the new musical, Trevor, since 2013 and shepherded it through readings in multiple cities, a premier at the Writer’s Theatre outside of Chicago, and a run in New York City in 2021.
Together with Gail Burton, Josie is the recipient of NEFA's New Works New England Grant for Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem
Salisha Thomas Weiss is excited to be making her Producing debut with Truth. She recently made her off-broadway directorial debut with Incarcerated at New York Rep.
On Broadway, she performed in Beautiful the Carole King Musical and is currently in Once Upon a One More Time. She is the host of Black hair in the Big Leagues podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network.
Samia Ahmed is a nanny, and current student at Middlesex Community College with a focus in Psychology and Early Childhood Education. Samia has been featured in Acting Out’s production of Seussical the Musical, Something Rotten, Life Is a Drag, Show!, and others. She has been a featured actor at Canobie Lake Park.
Acting and singing have always given Samia an outlet where she feels she could truly be herself, and after a long hiatus from performing, she’s been glad to spend the past year getting re-involved with her community theater. Samia is extremely happy to be a part of this project as an associate producer. She’s eager to learn what happens behind the scenes in order to make a production a success. She hopes her work can help bring to life the struggles and triumphs of abolitionist women, and help this impactful story reach the audience it deserves.
TyNia Brandon (she/they), associate producer, is a Charlotte, NC native now living in NYC with her incredible partner, Leo. Since completing her BFA degree in Musical Theater, her career has taken her around the world with Disney Cruise Line and to the Broadway stage where she debuted in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. While there, they co- founded a community outreach program called The Black is Beautiful Project. That platform allowed them the opportunity to partner with Sing for Your Seniors, a non-profit organization enriching the lives of seniors through entertainment, where they now hold a seat on the Board of Directors.
Currently, Brandon is performing in the new hit Broadway musical, Some Like It Hot. She is excited to continue reaching and teaching communities through joining the producing team of Truth. She lives by her family motto of “Reaching Back, Moving Forward”, a lesson that the Sankofa bird symbol offers as a reminder that we can use learnings from the past to carry us to a more beautiful future.
Marqell Edward Clayton is an Actor, Singer, Dancer, and Educator currently based in Los Angeles, CA. Marqell has performed across North America, and currently performs as Simba in the Disneyland Resort’s first all-black cast production of Tale of the Lion King. Marqell also recently closed the second run of a recurring production of a new original musical, 44: Obama Musical starring Grammy nominated recording artist Shanice. A few of his favorite credits include - singing background for Grammy nominated K-pop sensations BTS, the pre-Broadway tour of the Tony Award winning musical Ain’t Too Proud, 5th Avenue Theatre’s The Beauty and the Beast, and Conan on TBS! Marqell is thrilled to be on the producing team for Truth and is looking forward to transitioning more into the production side of the business. Visit marqelledwardclayton.com and @marqelledwardclayton for more info.
Gabrielle Elisabeth is an artist who has most recently been seen on Broadway in the Tony award winning, Beautiful the Carole King Musical and is currently working on the first production of Water for Elephants at the Alliance Theatre. You can also see her on the Emmy award winning show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She is very excited to be a part of this team, and can’t wait to help bring this beautiful story to life.
Maddie Fabricant is a producer currently based in New York City. Most recently, Maddie served as an associate producer on The Dr. Phil Show. She also served as associate producer on documentary short, “One of Many,” which debuted at Out on Film, Atlanta’s LBGTQ Film Festival, as well as Oxford International Short Film Festival, Garden State Film Festival, and many others.
Other credits include: production at Days of Our Lives, casting associate & talent coordinator for ABC’s Generation Gap, and assistant performing directing at Lincoln Center Education.
Maddie is currently serving as Mark Subias’s executive assistant at commercial firm SMUGGLER. Previous internships include: Martin Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions, MoviePass, LBI Entertainment, Blumhouse Productions.
Celeste Goulding is a radical social worker in rural Oregon, she works with communities to harness their own resources and recognize their inherent strengths. Originally from Alaska and raised in the Oregon forest she is the epitome of a PNW native, deeply connected to natural beauty and rhythms of the earth, with an equal love for bass-heavy all-nighters.
After 12 years of being deeply embedded in crisis services both formally and informally she is currently seeking a more peaceful and creative economic path for herself. She lives in a multi-generational household on 5 acres and is constantly building towards existing in a deeply connected and sustainable community. You can see a bit of what she is up to @oldegrowth2020 on Instagram or Facebook, or check out https://www.mindmanifestival.org/ for an example of community events she likes to involve herself in.
Ben Harvey is a rising junior at Roger Williams University. He is majoring in Creative Writing and History, soon to minor in Sociology and Anthropology. In 2022, he was a Bermont Fellow with his University Library and workshopped with the National Book Award Winning author Sigrid Nunez. He also was a Birss Fellow with the University Library from 2022-2023 and did extensive research on the South African writer Nadine Gordimer through both Yale University and Skidmore College. Currently, he is an intern for the Linden Place Writers’ Residency and hopes to soon have one of his short stories published before graduating college.
Lindsay Garner Hostetler is thrilled to join the producing team of Truth. Lindsay is the Director of Marketing & Outreach at Mountain Theatre Company in Highlands, NC. She recently made her regional theatre directorial debut at MTC with A Wrinkle in Time. She has spent over 15 years as a director, teaching artist, and storyteller for various institutions including Camp Merrie-Woode, Flat Rock Playhouse, Summit Charter School, and Asheville Community Theatre. Lindsay is passionate about bringing powerful women's stories throughout history to life, and she is delighted to be on board for this new work.
Shaynia Jean is a Boston Arts Academy alumni who found theatre and acting very young as a way to digest life and its many obstacles. Shay continues to be inspired by the way theater can help us see the world in different ways and develop new perspectives. Shay worked with Gail Burton and Josie Bray on their last project and is excited to be a part of telling this story.
Victoria Masteller is a theatre maker who is looking at the intersection of community engagement, culture/arts, education, and social justice action. For the past three years, she's been a theatre teacher in the NYC charter school system while producing and writing for store-front theatre projects. Previously completed internships in production at Double Edge Theatre Company and education at Actor's Theatre.
Jack Rizutko has been Josie's domestic partner for over 20 years. As a long time supporter, they are thrilled to finally take a formal role in supporting this exciting new project in Truth: a Biofictional Choreopoem.
A descendant of early New England settler colonists on one side, and Polish industrial revolution immigrants on the other, Jack's anti-oppression world view began with Punk ideology (Speak truth to power, question assumptions, and look out for community). They developed a professional career working in Public Health, Non-Profit, and Higher Ed. environments as an administrator and eventually an HR leader. Now they primarily teach healthy behaviors in their local community: healthy communication, healthy cooking, and physical fitness through traditional kung fu practice. They are also an enthusiast practicing regenerative soil management and food forestry.
Eli Tokash has performed on Broadway in Finding Neverland (Peter Llewelyn Davies) and Pippin (Theo). His most recent theatre credit was the title role in the World Premiere of Trevor The Musical. Before heading to Broadway, Eli was in A Christmas Story (Ralphie Parker) at Madison Square Garden. He has also been seen across the country in the national tours of Finding Neverland (Peter Llewelyn Davies) and Mary Poppins (Michael Banks). Due to his successful career, he has started a new podcast Take A Bow bringing Broadway right to you, every week.
You may have also seen him in several TV Shows such as Friends From College on Netflix, Forever on ABC, and Limitless on CBS just to name a few. He was also in the movies Who's Framing John DeLorean, Benji The Dove on Amazon Prime Video, and many more.
Current Team
Incentives
- The Story
- Wishlist
- Updates
- The Team
- Community
Mission Statement
The Story
Truth: A bio-fictional choreopoem is a new play combining music, poetry, spoken word, storytelling, and dance to tell the stories of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and other lesser known women abolitionists. Truth offers a more historically accurate narrative of our nation, the origins of our current capitalistic system, and its resistors: Black Women Abolitionists.
The inspiration for Truth: A bio-fictional choreopoem comes from historical research and stories of Black female resistors whose stories have been intentionally hidden from history. The powerful, smart, strategic women continue to inspire us as we consider the world we want to build now.
The project started with seed money to begin writing and research from NEFA (New England Foundation of the Arts) and has continued with writers residencies at Linden Place in Bristol, RI, a grant from RISCA (Rhode Island State Council for the Arts). Gail and Josie began their research last summer by meeting with community and local historians. They traveled to areas of New England and New York to study and learn about slavery and liberation, particularly in the North.
As the playwright, Gail continues to research and has recently been researching marriages between enslaved people and emancipated people and how love could prevail under terrible circumstances.
(Truth's Executive Producer, Josie Bray, and Playwright, Gail Burton, on a research trip to Northhampton, MA where Sojourner Truth created a "utopian community," living and working with white and black abolitionists. This community provided a vital stop on the underground railroad as people escaped to Canada.)
At a time when African American history is being contested in the national curriculum and authors like the Nobel Peace Prize winner Toni Morrison are banned, TRUTH brings vitality to our experience of American History through poetry, movement, sound, story, and song.
We know that Black narratives and Black lives have been silenced and erased. It was illegal for enslaved Africans and their descendents to be literate. Bringing the words of self-emancipating women and Black Abolitionists to light is meant to make visible what has been erased.
We want TRUTH to hum and to move in our bodies and in our cells. We want our audiences to feel that too. We want them to sing with us, to move with us, and to celebrate the joy and liberation that comes from reclaiming our right to make History.
A choreopoem is a form of dramatic expression that combines poetry, dance, music, and song. The term was first coined in 1975 by American writer Ntozake Shange in a description of her play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Shange's attempt to depart from traditional western poetry and storytelling resulted in a new art form that doesn't contain specific plot elements or characters, but instead focuses on creating an emotional response from the audience. Many other artists have also innovated within the choreopoem genre, which has become increasingly popular among younger generations of artists.
(Left to right: Gail Burton (TRUTH playwright), Ntosake Shange, and Patricia Smith, circa 1993, preparing for the historic Darkroom Collective poetry series at the Institute of Contemporary Art (Boylston Street).)
Between a first reading and a fully realized production, a workshop production is a vital and exciting step in the life of a new play.
A workshop production is staged in a form which does not include all aspects of a full production. For example, actors will have lines memorized and movement staged, but costumes, sets, and other elements may be absent or simplified. Characters may dressed simply in all black and not in specific costumes; stage boxes may be used instead of furniture; and stage lighting may exist in a most simple form.
A workshop production is a critical step in a play’s development to gauge audience and critical reaction to the piece. Following a workshop production, the work will often be adjusted and rewrites will occur before the play receives a fully produced and designed production, which would include a set, costumes, lighting and sound design, etc.
Gail A. Burton began her creative writing journey as a spoken word artist during the era of the Poetry Slam in MA established at the Cantab Lounge by Patricia Smith and Michael Brown who brought it from Chicago. She was a featured poet of the Dark Room Collective a black poetry collective founded by black Harvard College undergraduates as a means of continuing the legacy of the Black Arts movement.
The structure of the choreopoem led into forays with dramatic poetry and devised theater anthology work which eventually culminated in her first traditional play entitled Muses. Muses received a review in a special edition of the African American Review edited by theater scholar Paul Carter Harrison. Additionally, Burton received a Cambridge Peace Award for the play. Her work has been written about and reviewed in the African American Review, ArtsMedia, Proscenium, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, Bay Windows, Bay State Banner.
Josie Bray brings over two decades of work as a theatre and dance artist, producer, teacher, and facilitator. She is a lead Producer on Trevor the Musical (now on Disney+) and is a former faculty member of Emerson College. Josie has directed and choreographed Off-Broadway and Regionally in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well as at concert dance halls and universities. She worked as Assistant Director on the 2009 Broadway Revival of Ragtime.
Josie’s primary focus is on New Work. In 2019 Josie was awarded the Boston Foundation's LAB grant. Together with Gail Burton, Josie is the recipient of NEFA's New Works New England Grant for Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem.
Salisha Thomas Weiss is excited to be making her Producing debut with Truth. She recently made her off-broadway directorial debut with Incarcerated at New York Rep.
On Broadway, she performed in Beautiful the Carole King Musical and is currently in Once Upon a One More Time. She is the host of Black hair in the Big Leagues podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network.
Our team of Associate Producers bring a wealth of experience in varying capacities and a passion for the project!
We are raising money to fund a workshop production of TRUTH in 2024. This workshop production will engage professional directors, artists, and performers to bring TRUTH to life in front of an audience with movement and staging for the first time. We are approaching this from a grassroots campaign philosophy. And that's where you come in!
The largest portion of our budget, over 84%, goes to paying the salaries of all the artists working on this project, both on stage and off.
Please follow us on social media and spread the word. We are sharing the journey of developing a new play and telling untold history, and we’d love to be engaged with you as we forge this path.
If you are not in a position to contribute financially, you can make a big difference by liking our Facebook page, following us on Instagram, and sharing this campaign with others. It really makes a difference. Truly!
Here are some examples of posts you can share on Facebook and beyond if you need help getting started:
Contribute @truthplay.org_ and help bring an inspiring new play about Black Women Abolitionists to life! www.truthplay.org
Support the theatremakers behind @truthplay.org_, an inspiring new play about Black Women Abolitionists! - www.truthplay.org
Wishlist
Use the WishList to Pledge cash and Loan items - or - Make a pledge by selecting an Incentive directly.
Director/Consutant
Costs $3,500
Creative direction of project
Writer
Costs $6,000
Writing the play
Producer
Costs $6,000
Production Work
Co-Producer
Costs $2,000
Co-Producer
Videographer
Costs $3,000
Videographer and Editing Services
Technical Director
Costs $3,000
TD
Stage Manager
Costs $3,000
Stage Management
Performers
Costs $15,240
Actors and Spoken Word Artists
Rehearsal and Performance Space
Costs $2,850
Rehearsal and Performance Space
Travel
Costs $1,000
Travel
Virtual Assistant
Costs $1,800
Virtual Assistant
Printing, Design and Equipment
Costs $2,610
Printing, Design, Equipment
Fees for Seed & Spark and our Crowdfunding Coach
Costs $5,000
Fees for Seed & Spark and our Crowdfunding Coach
Cash Pledge
Costs $0
Direct link:
Share this update!
About This Team
Gail A. Burton began her creative writing journey as a spoken word artist during the era of the Poetry Slam in MA established at the Cantab Lounge by Patricia Smith and Michael Brown who brought it from Chicago. Burton was influenced by this style of writing and expression and became a spoken word artist in cafes, bars, museums and bookstores. She was a featured poet of the Dark Room Collective a black poetry collective founded by black Harvard College undergraduates as a means of continuing the legacy of the Black Arts movement.
The structure of the choreopoem led into forays with dramatic poetry and devised theater anthology work which eventually culminated in her first traditional play entitled Muses. Muses received a review in a special edition of the African American Review edited by theater scholar Paul Carter Harrison. Additionally, Burton received a Cambridge Peace Award for the play.
Her work has been written about and reviewed in the African American Review, ArtsMedia, Proscenium, Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix, Bay Windows, Bay State Banner.
She is also an applied theater practitioner and Joker of theater of the oppressed at the Center for Theater and Pedagogy of the Oppressed.
Josie Bray brings over two decades of work as a theatre and dance artist, producer, teacher, and facilitator. She is a lead Producer on Trevor the Musical (now on Disney+) and is a former faculty member of Emerson College where she taught Movement for Actors, Improvisation, and Dance.
Josie has trained Broadway actors from the casts of The Lion King, Mary Poppins, Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys, Beautiful, Les Miserables, Chicago and professional dancers from Boston Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Pina Bausch, Los Angeles Ballet, The Bang Group, City Ballet of Boston, The Cleveland Ballet, Urbanity Dance Company, among others. Josie has directed and choreographed Off-Broadway and Regionally in Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, and New York, as well as at concert dance halls and universities. She worked as Assistant Director on the 2009 Broadway Revival of Ragtime.
Josie’s primary focus is on New Work. She has nearly two decades of experience in devised theatre and dance production, has directed several readings and equity showcases in New York, and in 2019 was awarded the LAB grant from the Boston Foundation to create a new piece in movement theatre. Josie has nurtured the new musical, Trevor, since 2013 and shepherded it through readings in multiple cities, a premier at the Writer’s Theatre outside of Chicago, and a run in New York City in 2021.
Together with Gail Burton, Josie is the recipient of NEFA's New Works New England Grant for Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem
Salisha Thomas Weiss is excited to be making her Producing debut with Truth. She recently made her off-broadway directorial debut with Incarcerated at New York Rep.
On Broadway, she performed in Beautiful the Carole King Musical and is currently in Once Upon a One More Time. She is the host of Black hair in the Big Leagues podcast on the Broadway Podcast Network.
Samia Ahmed is a nanny, and current student at Middlesex Community College with a focus in Psychology and Early Childhood Education. Samia has been featured in Acting Out’s production of Seussical the Musical, Something Rotten, Life Is a Drag, Show!, and others. She has been a featured actor at Canobie Lake Park.
Acting and singing have always given Samia an outlet where she feels she could truly be herself, and after a long hiatus from performing, she’s been glad to spend the past year getting re-involved with her community theater. Samia is extremely happy to be a part of this project as an associate producer. She’s eager to learn what happens behind the scenes in order to make a production a success. She hopes her work can help bring to life the struggles and triumphs of abolitionist women, and help this impactful story reach the audience it deserves.
TyNia Brandon (she/they), associate producer, is a Charlotte, NC native now living in NYC with her incredible partner, Leo. Since completing her BFA degree in Musical Theater, her career has taken her around the world with Disney Cruise Line and to the Broadway stage where she debuted in Beautiful: The Carole King Musical. While there, they co- founded a community outreach program called The Black is Beautiful Project. That platform allowed them the opportunity to partner with Sing for Your Seniors, a non-profit organization enriching the lives of seniors through entertainment, where they now hold a seat on the Board of Directors.
Currently, Brandon is performing in the new hit Broadway musical, Some Like It Hot. She is excited to continue reaching and teaching communities through joining the producing team of Truth. She lives by her family motto of “Reaching Back, Moving Forward”, a lesson that the Sankofa bird symbol offers as a reminder that we can use learnings from the past to carry us to a more beautiful future.
Marqell Edward Clayton is an Actor, Singer, Dancer, and Educator currently based in Los Angeles, CA. Marqell has performed across North America, and currently performs as Simba in the Disneyland Resort’s first all-black cast production of Tale of the Lion King. Marqell also recently closed the second run of a recurring production of a new original musical, 44: Obama Musical starring Grammy nominated recording artist Shanice. A few of his favorite credits include - singing background for Grammy nominated K-pop sensations BTS, the pre-Broadway tour of the Tony Award winning musical Ain’t Too Proud, 5th Avenue Theatre’s The Beauty and the Beast, and Conan on TBS! Marqell is thrilled to be on the producing team for Truth and is looking forward to transitioning more into the production side of the business. Visit marqelledwardclayton.com and @marqelledwardclayton for more info.
Gabrielle Elisabeth is an artist who has most recently been seen on Broadway in the Tony award winning, Beautiful the Carole King Musical and is currently working on the first production of Water for Elephants at the Alliance Theatre. You can also see her on the Emmy award winning show, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. She is very excited to be a part of this team, and can’t wait to help bring this beautiful story to life.
Maddie Fabricant is a producer currently based in New York City. Most recently, Maddie served as an associate producer on The Dr. Phil Show. She also served as associate producer on documentary short, “One of Many,” which debuted at Out on Film, Atlanta’s LBGTQ Film Festival, as well as Oxford International Short Film Festival, Garden State Film Festival, and many others.
Other credits include: production at Days of Our Lives, casting associate & talent coordinator for ABC’s Generation Gap, and assistant performing directing at Lincoln Center Education.
Maddie is currently serving as Mark Subias’s executive assistant at commercial firm SMUGGLER. Previous internships include: Martin Scorsese’s Sikelia Productions, MoviePass, LBI Entertainment, Blumhouse Productions.
Celeste Goulding is a radical social worker in rural Oregon, she works with communities to harness their own resources and recognize their inherent strengths. Originally from Alaska and raised in the Oregon forest she is the epitome of a PNW native, deeply connected to natural beauty and rhythms of the earth, with an equal love for bass-heavy all-nighters.
After 12 years of being deeply embedded in crisis services both formally and informally she is currently seeking a more peaceful and creative economic path for herself. She lives in a multi-generational household on 5 acres and is constantly building towards existing in a deeply connected and sustainable community. You can see a bit of what she is up to @oldegrowth2020 on Instagram or Facebook, or check out https://www.mindmanifestival.org/ for an example of community events she likes to involve herself in.
Ben Harvey is a rising junior at Roger Williams University. He is majoring in Creative Writing and History, soon to minor in Sociology and Anthropology. In 2022, he was a Bermont Fellow with his University Library and workshopped with the National Book Award Winning author Sigrid Nunez. He also was a Birss Fellow with the University Library from 2022-2023 and did extensive research on the South African writer Nadine Gordimer through both Yale University and Skidmore College. Currently, he is an intern for the Linden Place Writers’ Residency and hopes to soon have one of his short stories published before graduating college.
Lindsay Garner Hostetler is thrilled to join the producing team of Truth. Lindsay is the Director of Marketing & Outreach at Mountain Theatre Company in Highlands, NC. She recently made her regional theatre directorial debut at MTC with A Wrinkle in Time. She has spent over 15 years as a director, teaching artist, and storyteller for various institutions including Camp Merrie-Woode, Flat Rock Playhouse, Summit Charter School, and Asheville Community Theatre. Lindsay is passionate about bringing powerful women's stories throughout history to life, and she is delighted to be on board for this new work.
Shaynia Jean is a Boston Arts Academy alumni who found theatre and acting very young as a way to digest life and its many obstacles. Shay continues to be inspired by the way theater can help us see the world in different ways and develop new perspectives. Shay worked with Gail Burton and Josie Bray on their last project and is excited to be a part of telling this story.
Victoria Masteller is a theatre maker who is looking at the intersection of community engagement, culture/arts, education, and social justice action. For the past three years, she's been a theatre teacher in the NYC charter school system while producing and writing for store-front theatre projects. Previously completed internships in production at Double Edge Theatre Company and education at Actor's Theatre.
Jack Rizutko has been Josie's domestic partner for over 20 years. As a long time supporter, they are thrilled to finally take a formal role in supporting this exciting new project in Truth: a Biofictional Choreopoem.
A descendant of early New England settler colonists on one side, and Polish industrial revolution immigrants on the other, Jack's anti-oppression world view began with Punk ideology (Speak truth to power, question assumptions, and look out for community). They developed a professional career working in Public Health, Non-Profit, and Higher Ed. environments as an administrator and eventually an HR leader. Now they primarily teach healthy behaviors in their local community: healthy communication, healthy cooking, and physical fitness through traditional kung fu practice. They are also an enthusiast practicing regenerative soil management and food forestry.
Eli Tokash has performed on Broadway in Finding Neverland (Peter Llewelyn Davies) and Pippin (Theo). His most recent theatre credit was the title role in the World Premiere of Trevor The Musical. Before heading to Broadway, Eli was in A Christmas Story (Ralphie Parker) at Madison Square Garden. He has also been seen across the country in the national tours of Finding Neverland (Peter Llewelyn Davies) and Mary Poppins (Michael Banks). Due to his successful career, he has started a new podcast Take A Bow bringing Broadway right to you, every week.
You may have also seen him in several TV Shows such as Friends From College on Netflix, Forever on ABC, and Limitless on CBS just to name a few. He was also in the movies Who's Framing John DeLorean, Benji The Dove on Amazon Prime Video, and many more.