CANCELED: In Their Silence

Overview

This show has been canceled.

Grace is a burgeoning therapist. Merci dangles for freedom at the bottom of a bourbon glass. College sweethearts and newlyweds, they elope to Philadelphia for a fresh beginning. Stumbling into polarizing landscapes, they struggle in the margins of heart and home.

Written by international playwright and performance poet TS Hawkins, In Their Silence is a choreopoem painting an unfortunate truth of Philadelphia’s social-political landscape. With educational budget cuts, prisons on the rise, and white flight profiting from black and brown bodies struggling in the margins, Hawkins pens the reality of a city’s “brotherly love”.

About the Artist

Now celebrating our 70th Anniversary, Allens Lane Art Center was founded on June 23rd, 1953, by a group of Mt. Airy residents who united around a community-wide mission toward intentional integration. Our founding was part of a larger grassroots movement in the 1950s, which sought to encourage African American home buying in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Northwest Philadelphia and to build a safe and welcoming neighborhood for a racially diverse community. Proponents of the social justice movement worked to create new community spaces for all residents to gather and to remove the economic exclusivity of the area through community organizing, including through the formation of civic organizations such as West Mount Airy Neighbors (WMAN). As one of the new community spaces established, the Center’s founders’ vision was for all Northwest Philadelphia residents to experience equitable opportunities in arts and culture, unite over their shared experiences, and extend this unity outside of Allens Lane Art Center’s campus.

Since its founding in 1953, Allens Lane Art Center has been a cornerstone of the Mt. Airy community by bringing residents together to participate in and experience the arts. Whether it’s art classes for children or adults, art exhibitions, or cutting-edge plays on the main stage, there is something for everyone at Allens Lane.

Credits