Support Black Femme Artists: The Archive

Hi there, my name is Jordan Powell, the Artistic Producer of The Archive: New Works by Black Women. First of all thank you for giving me moments of your time to learn more about my project! I am a writer, director, producer, and poet. I graduated from NYU Tisch in 2022 but for as long as I can remember I have loved telling stories and making art in community. My work as a writer and director is to bring together Black women so we can, as a community, excavate our past and retell these stories through our bodies, voice that help us archive these stories. Through my art, I can learn more about my ancestors and use my art as a place to document and remember my people.

The Archive: New Works by Black Women is a stage reading showcasing Black female playwrights and Black femme directors. The plays will tell the stories of these women and serve as the act of archiving them as we store them in our collective memory. The playwrights will meet with each other over the course of January and a quick rehearsal process with a director and actors. The Archive is a part of my long life mission to create an artistic space for Black femmes to practice their craft, share their stories, and be in community with each other. Black femme artists have to jump financial hurdles to even be in space to dream into their creativity. The Archive strives to create a safe and generative space for creativity through community building and peer to peer feedback by giving artists the resources to experiment.

I am fully funding this project on my own as an act to support Black femme creatives and need your help to cover payment for artists and additional rehearsal space. Currently, I am providing a venue and rehearsal space for the playwrights (listed below). With these financial and venue resources, our goal is to share their personal stories to other black femmes so we can hold out histories.

As an independent producer using my own limited resources, I can commit to compensating artists with the revenue generated from these performances. The Archive takes a team of talented playwrights, directors, stage manager, and technicians and your generous contributions will ensure that these artists will be compensated fairly.

Meet the Playwrights

Kai Hartman is a multi-disciplinary artist, filmmaker, and writer attending New York University’s Grad Film program where she is currently pursuing her M.F.A in Film Production. She is a recent graduate of Howard University where she studied filmmaking and theatre. Born in Atlanta, Georgia and raised in Douglasville, GA, Kai gravitates toward generational stories about and as experienced through Black women, through which her artistry comes from. Her practice is grounded in afro-surrealism and her goal is to use her imagination and experiences to create work that acts as an archive.

Thalia Sablon Born in Haiti, raised in Queens, I have my mothers tongue and a New York accent.” Thalia Sablon is a New York City-based playwright, producer, and artistic administrator with a passion for eccentric storytelling. She recently earned her MFA in Playwriting from Rutgers University and has received numerous accolades for her work, including the Kelly Kriedeman Memorial Award, V.J. Mastrobuono Memorial Scholarship as well as a NYFA City Corps Artist grant. Her work has been produced and workshopped at Rutgers University, with New Georges, Third Culture Theatre in California, and The Workshop Theatre. In 2023 Thalia was the Artistic Admin Fellow at New York Theatre Workshop and now she is the Artistic Programs Assistant at Ensemble Studio Theatre. Thaila is currently independently producing a queer horror/slasher film titled Cry Wolf set to release in February 2024. She is also in the final editing stages of her short film titled Strung, which she co-wrote and produced with spoken word poet and program coordinator for Scope Of Work (SOW), Dasia Carr. Thalia enjoys producing work that excites her and disrupts what is seen as the status quo. Lately, Thalia has been obsessed with dirt and the act of digging, she is hoping to bring this obsession to the stage in some way.

Marissa Joyce Stamps is a Black, Haitian-American NYC-born and based Afrosurreal writer, director, actor, and educator. She is the recipient of the 2023 Princess Grace Playwriting Award/New Dramatists Residency, a member of Clubbed Thumb's 2023-2024 Early-Career Writers Group, member of EST/Youngblood, a New Georges Affiliate Artist, and was a Finalist for National Black Theatre's 2023 I AM SOUL Playwrights Residency and a Mercury Store Fall 2023 Lead Artist. Plays: …Twisted Juniper (2022 O'Neill NPC Finalist; Chautauqua’s 2021 NPW; Workshop Theater's Fall 2020 Intensive), Being Up in Here... (Exponential Festival 2024, Princess Grace 2023), Blue Fire… (Exponential Festival 2022; Orchard Project’s 2021), deadbodydeadbodydeadbody (Ars Nova ANT Fest 2022), Letiche… (Bushwick Starr SRS 2023), and Techno Paper Planes (Moxie Arts Commission 20/21).

Marissa has also collaborated with The Public Theater, 24 Hour Plays, Fire This Time Festival, Conch Shell Productions, Dixon Place, Irondale, The Anthropologists, New Ohio Theatre, Keen Company, Wild Project, BUFU, and more. She is a proud member of The Dramatists Guild and Playwrights’ Center. Marissa serves as The Workshop Theater's Literary Manager and has taught at Brooklyn College. MFA: Brooklyn College. marissajoycestamps.com @marissajoycestamps

Jordan Powell is a Jamaican American director, writer, filmmaker, designer, and educator. Her work as a writer and director is to bring together black women so we can, as a community, excavate our past and retell these stories through our bodies, voices, and new technological devices that help us archive these stories. Her work archives and documents the present so that we can be represented in the future. She has written and directed a film, Cutie, that was developed in the Nine Muses Lab taught by Bryce Dallas Howard. Has worked shown at The Wild Project, Playwrights Downtown, and New York Theater Festival.