Breath, Boom
- Written by Kia Corthron
- Directed by Marion McClinton
KIA CORTHRON's A Cool Dip in the Barren Saharan Crick premiered at Playwrights Horizons in spring 2010. Other plays include Moot the Messenger; Light Raise the Roof; Snapshot Silhouette; Slide Glide the Slippery Slope; The Venus de Milo Is Armed; Breath, Boom; Force Continuum; Splash Hatch on the E Going Down; Seeking the Genesis; Digging Eleven; Life by Asphyxiation; Wake Up Lou Riser; Come Down Burning; Cage Rhythm. Awards include the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Creative Arts Residency, McKnight National Residency, Virginia Center for the Creative Arts Award for Excellence in the Arts, Barbara Barondess MacLean Foundation Award, AT&T On Stage Award, Daryl Roth Creative Spirit Award, Mark Taper Forum's Fadiman Award, NEA/TCG, Kennedy Center Fund for New American Plays, New Professional Theatre Playwriting Award, Callaway Award, Connections Contest winner, and in television a Writers Guild Outstanding Drama Series Award and Edgar Allan Poe Award for The Wire.
MARION McCLINTON has directed August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom ,King Hedley II (Broadway, Tony nomination), Two Trains Running (Center Stage), Fences (Indiana Rep, Pittsburgh Public), The Piano Lesson (Penumbra Theatre), Seven Guitars (Pittsburgh Public, Center Stage), Joe Turner's Come and Gone (Missouri Rep) and Jitney (Pittsburgh Public, Center Stage, Studio Arena, Geva, Goodman Theatre, Mark Taper, Second Stage and The Royal National Theatre in London). Recent Center Stage: Les Blancs and Splash Hatch on the E Going Down. Other directing: Thunder Knocking on the Door (Guthrie, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Center Stage, Dallas Theater Center); The Coming of the Hurricane (Arena Stage); A Midsummer Night's Dream (La Jolla); Death and the King's Horseman (Syracuse Stage); East Texas Hot Links (Public Theater); TALK (Foundry Theatre); A Raisin in the Sun (Center Stage); Breath, Boom! (Playwrights Horizons); Carson McCullers (Historically Inaccurate) (Playwrights Horizons/Women's Project). Playwrighting: Police Boys (Center Stage, Playwrights Horizons, Pittsburgh Public),Walkers (Off-Broadway), Stones and Bones (Actors Theatre of Louisville), Who Causes the Darkness? (Penumbra). Awards: two Audelcos, Obie, Ira Aldredge, Joseph Calloway, Kesselring Prize, NEA/TCG Pew Charitable Trust Grant; Drama Desk and Evening Standard nominations. Alumnus, New Dramatists; company member, Penumbra Theatre; associate artist, Center Stage. (As of June 2007)
For Prix and the teenage girls who inhabit New York's toughest neighborhoods, coming of age is equal parts bullets and boys. With danger ever-present, and juvenile detention a second home, Prix seeks solace in the design of fireworks displays, her source of beauty in a world teeming with violence and despair.
Featuring
Russell Andrews
Pascale Armand
Dena Atlantic
Kalimi A. Baxter
Caroline Stefanie Clay
Rosalyn Coleman
Donna Duplantier
Yvette Ganier
Abigail Lopez
Heather Alicia Simms
Creative Team
Katherine Roth
Costume DesignerMichael Philippi
Lighting DesignerKen Travis
Sound DesignerJane Pole
Production Stage ManagerKen is a Broadway sound designer who specializes in musical reinforcement. His system designs and soundscapes have been heard across Europe and the United States. In 2019 Ken won The Helen Hayes Award for the Shakespeare Theater Company’s production of Camelot and in 2013 Ken won the NAACP award for Memphis the Musical. He has been nominated for the Henry Hewes award for Mr Burns a Post Electric Play, the NAACP award for Sister Act, the Lortel Award for Abigail's Party, and the Audelco Award for Fabulation.
Photos of (1) Yvette Ganier and Abigail Lopez; and (2) Rosalyn Coleman and Yvette Ganier by Carol Rosegg.
Ms. Corthron has created a vivid world, believable and eye-opening, a place worthy of a dramatic visit, where no one would want to live but many have to.
Rich with humor, terse vernacular strength and gritty detail.