Starlight TheatreRaise Our VoicesProducer (Spoken Word Poetry)2023
SheNYC Arts Festival
Playwright in Residence
Summer 2022
For the festival this year I was named the Playwright in Residence. The festival made a commitment to the continuation of mentoring their past festival playwrights. I had an opportunity to have meetings and meet-ups with the writers and talk about challenges, success, and worries that they were all dealing with in preparation for their summer show premieres. The playwrights were from areas within New York City, but a good number of the writers were outside of the city and even outside the state. My first attendance at the festival as a writer was in 2016. I have also worked as a DIE consultant for the festival and will be working as their publisher in the future.
Project: Full length play
"Gray: A Play About A RACE Through Time"
Directed by: KM Jones
New York City, NY
2022
Writer
We open with two Black boys as one tries to prepare the other for what lies beyond. Beginning with a crime scene Anytown, USA. The boy’s bond over a game of basketball, it's universal, and it's safe. The play tells different stories by different people and perspectives of issues that face Black men and women in this country at present and historically. The experience reminds of a general theme of history continuing to repeat itself and brings another shining light on the fact that this life is not clearly black or white, but rather we live in shades of "Gray."
Produced by: Kristy Thomas & SheNYC Arts Festival
Project: TRU Speaks NYC Gala
"Only Black"
Directed by Tony winner: Ben Harney
2022
A school district utilizes their one Black superintendent as a pawn any and every time there is an issue that is related to race. Of course he realizes what is happening but he also believes that when you exist ad the only Black person in a space like this it is a service that maybe he should be doing. But as he prepares for a press conference where he must say things he doesn't believe in, it is the memory of his father and the man that he was that forces him to be the change and stand up for what he knows is right. A play performed as a short film with actor Guy Whitlock playing the lead. A picture of an inside view of the difficulties with being the only in an educational institution.
Written by: Kristy Thomas
Produced by: Theatre Resources Unlimited NYC
Project: Play
"Sisters & Brothers"
2022
Writer
A story set in San Diego, CA in 1983 at the rise of the AIDS Epidemic. A group of women join together to hold blood drives for the men dying in hospitals when the decision was made to not get them the care they needed. A story that centers around a group of AIDS patients in a hospital, the doctors and nurses caring for them and their loved ones that are by their side. This fictitious story about one of the most emotionally difficult times in American History reminds us that sometimes when we can't help ourselves, there are others, often times strangers, willing to do anything for us.
Produced by: Liberty North High School
Project: Musical
"Will Wilson Saves the World: a new musical"
Director/ Acting Coach
New York City workshop to staged reading of the new musical "Will Wilson Saves the World" loosely based on the true stories of a World War II vet and hero. A kind of memoir that addresses the story of a grandfather and his granddaughter who is fighting to bring a Nazi war criminal to justice. Is it ever too late? Will her grandfather get the closure he deserves for the man who killed his best friend, other American soldiers, and nearly killed him during the war?
