Theater News

Award-Winning Playwright Ishmael Reed Presents The Final Version at Nuyorican Poets Café

Performances will run through January 19.

Temesgen Tocruray (seated) with Dawn Murphy and Rome Neal in Ishmael Reed's The Final Version.
Temesgen Tocruray (seated) with Dawn Murphy and Rome Neal in Ishmael Reed's The Final Version.
(© David A Powell)

The Final Version, a new play by MacArthur Genius Grant Award winner Ishmael Reed, is currently running at Nuyorican Poets Café through January 19.

The play follows Communist Party-sponsored black writer Lee Ransom, who in 1939 chooses to publish his novel, Let the Red Flags Unfurl, with an uptown publisher under the condition that he cut two of his radical characters. Twenty-six years later, he must decide again whether or not to publish his novel when a publishing company expresses interest in printing the original version.

Rome Neal directs and performs with a cast featuring Lynae' DePriest, Mellissa Harlow, Dawn Murphy, Molly Elizabeth Parker, Stephen Powell, Connie Stewart, Temesgen Tocruray, and Robert Turner. The creative team includes June Terry (costume design), James "Prez" Carter (lighting design), and Percy Scott (makeup design).

For tickets and more information, click here.

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The Final Version

Closed: January 19, 2014