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Tickets are $25 per household.
CitySpace Presents supports the capital project to create a 350-seat accessible performing art and community space in Easthampton’s most iconic and historic building, Old Town Hall.
Generous CitySpace Presents ticketholders have paid it forward for others to attend. If you are interested in seeing the performance but can’t swing the cost, use the promo code “paidforward” for free admission upon check out with a $25 ticket. Donations are appreciated.
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Western Massachusetts is home to some of the world’s most esteemed literary figures. Artistic producer and playwright Emily Wiest reintroduces us to some of these writers’ works through new interpretations from actors— Phanésia Pharel, Annelise Lawson, Tony Aidan Vo, and Austin Jones, performed especially for this series. Explore the relationship of the Connecticut River Valley’s history and language through a series of captivating performances. Ocean Vuong, Charlise Lyles, Emily Dickinson, and David Foster Wallace, are amongst the esteemed authors whose works are to be performed.
In addition to the main event, enjoy a conversation with Glendale Ridge Vineyard, get in the mood with a carefully crafted playlist in your inbox, learn more about the Old Town Hall project, and receive delightful diversions in your mailbox.
For the final CitySpace Presents in this series, we are collaborating with Glendale Ridge Vineyard. Buy a bottle of their 2018 Estate Crescent White through April 18 and they will donate 10% of the proceeds towards CitySpace’s Old Town Hall Project.
PHANÉSIA PHAREL is a Haitian-American playwright who is currently focusing on the divine metaphysical dilemma of Black and Latinx girlhood. Generally, her plays span revolutions, islands, and Afro-Futurism. Thanks to City Theatre Miami, she discovered her love of playwriting at fifteen years old. Recent success includes her play And Other Dreams We Had which was a finalist for the City Theatre National Short Playwriting Award and was selected for Smith and Kraus Best Plays of 2020. She has developed several pieces with Conch Shell Productions and works as a Teaching Artist for ViBe Theater Experience. In 2020, she was Artist in Residence for New York Stage and Film and a National Young Playwright Residency for the Echo Theater Company of Los Angeles. At the moment she is under commission by Thrown Stone Theatre, City Theatre Miami, and is a member of the New York Stage and Films NYSAF group. Last but certainly not least Phanésia is a proud member of the Dramatist Guild of America.
ANNELISE LAWSON is a New York-based actress and graduate of the Yale School of Drama. Recent credits include Anna in Babes in the Woods (Signature Theater), Edmund in King Lear (Here Arts Center), Helena in MIDSUMMER (The Araca Project), and Masha in Dmitry Krymov’s √3 Sisters (International Festival of Arts & Ideas). Other theatre credits include Acadia (Yale Repertory Theatre); The Oresteia, Our Lady of 121st Street, …And Sometimes Why?, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Troublesome Reign of King John, The Tempest, In Arabia We’d All Be Kings, and Preston Montfort—An American Tragedy (Yale School of Drama); Middletown, A Map of Virtue, Summer Shorts: A Festival of New Voices (Yale Summer Cabaret); The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, The Secretaries, The Hotel Nepenthe, (Yale Cabaret); The Madness of Edgar Allan Poe (First Folio). Film: Close-Up (NY Indie Theater Film Festival Winner). She holds certificates in acting from the Moscow Art Theatre School & the British American Drama Academy and is a graduate of the iO training program in Chicago. She teaches Analysis through Action at Yale School of Drama, The New School for Drama, and the Stella Adler Studio. She has also taught at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, The Shakespeare Academy at Stratford, and the Pandemonium Studio.
EMILY WIEST is a New York City-based writer for the screen, stage and non-fiction page as well as a research affiliate with Smith College. Recent works include Babes in the Wood (Signature Theatre), Alphabet City (Columbia University), Peaches, (Robert X. Modica Studios), Virtually Neurotic, (NPRS). Film: A Digital Love Letter to Slim Shady, Wal-Mart, BadPuss: A Popumentary. (A VH1/Viacom collaboration.) Emily holds an MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts and completed her undergraduate degree in theatre at Smith College.
CitySpace Presents is in support of CitySpace’s Transformation Campaign — a capital project to create a 350-seat accessible performing art and community space in Easthampton’s most iconic and historic building, Old Town Hall. Learn More.
