INTERVIEW: Downtown Urban Arts Festival returns with CeCe Peniston, community poetry slam
Photo: Reg E. Gaines is the founder and artistic director of the Downtown Urban Arts Festival. Photo courtesy of the artist / Provided by Coyle Entertainment with permission.
The Downtown Urban Arts Festival in New York City has been around for 17 years, and 2019 promises to be a positive celebration of music, poetry, theater and spoken word. Founder and artistic director Reg E. Gaines said that, although many people might be expecting serious stories involving the current politics in Washington, D.C., the pieces he has curated take a different approach to these monumental times.
“There’s a lot of positivity that’s not preachy and not corny,” Gaines said in a recent phone interview. “A lot of positivity, a lot of celebratory ideas, which makes me happy. It makes me very, very happy. … It’s very, very positive. There are immigration stories, but they’re more celebratory. There are economic [stories], and there are gender-issue stories. But they’re more celebratory.”
The curation process for Gaines and his team is extensive. Although it has been streamlined in recent years, it still takes a long time to consider each of the submissions.
“When we first began, they would send me 250 scripts, and they’ve now weeded it down because we have a process,” he said. “My process is I’m really big on titles. The more ambiguity the better, and so I have an A pile, a B pile and a C pile if I love the title. … I read the first 10 pages of every A pile, and when I’m done reading the first 10 pages, the ones that I remember the most I go back and read the entire script. That’s the process that I take with all of them, and, of course, some in the C pile wind up in the festival. Some in the A pile don’t, but I begin with titles.”
This year, that process has produced many eclectic and diverse programs. One of the highlights is a special concert by recording artist CeCe Peniston (“Finally”) Thursday, April 11 at 9:30 p.m. at Joe’s Pub. Two nights later, on April 13, there’s a community poetry slam at Nuyorican Poets Café.
Nearly 20 playwrights are represented in the theater category, and their work will be staged at The Wild Project. There is a mixture of styles and topics, and although more of the programming is celebratory, as Gaines said, there are selections that tackle difficult issues. This year the theater pieces cover such topics as black queer life; Black Lives Matter; drinking water in Flint, Michigan; sexual assault; and the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.
Gaines, who was Tony and Grammy nominated for Bring in da’ Noise, Bring in da’ Funk, works with producer T. Mark Newell on the five-week festival, which runs April 11 to May 18.
Gaines actually said some of the early days of the festival were based on Newell’s scouring of the New York spoken-word scene for rising talent.
“He started picking favorite poets, and he would invite them to come do gigs,” Gaines said. “Then he decided, you know, maybe we can have some of these poets and give them a little bit of funding, and maybe they can write plays. … He wanted to help people whose voices were not being heard on the stage, and yet now, this year, we’re getting candidates from Yale and Columbia. It’s crazy. Whereas it used to be from voices that were on the periphery, now it’s like everybody and their mother are trying to get produced, even if it’s a one-shot deal, which tells you so much about the economics of theater.”
Gaines believes this year he read nine or 10 plays by candidates with a Master of Fine Arts in writing. He welcomed their submissions and thought it was interesting how much the festival has changed over the years.
“It’s really changed quite a bit,” he said. “Most of the people in the early years, they didn’t even think they wanted to be playwrights. They were coaxed into thinking that maybe this is a way to take their poetry. Now it’s gone full circle.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Downtown Urban Arts Festival runs April 11 to May 18 at various venues in Manhattan, including Joe’s Pub, The Wild Project, Nuyorican Poets Café and Tribeca Film Center. Click here for more information and tickets.
