The Ghost of Genevieve Baptiste

CimientosReading2024

Jun 6

*“She may be dead - but she's not gone - and she's not done”*

Written by **Robyn Brooks**
Directed by **Fernando Vieira**
Staged Reading Presentation:
**Thursday, June 6, 2024** – **8:00 PM**
Language: **English**
Tickets:
*General admission, one reading -* **$10**
*Two reading pass -* **$15**
*Cimientos full season pass (10 readings) -* $50
Available at the door and ***online >>***
Location:
**IATI Theater Studio**
64 E. 4th St 2 Fl
New York, NY, 10003
Hashtag: **#Cimientos2024**

Synopsis

The Ghost of Genevieve Baptiste is a Southern Gothic tragicomedy, set in Obama-Era New Orleans. Told in eight scenes, in reversed chronological order, this tale weaves together black lesbian love, Hoodoo, the dark arts, mythology, colorism, cultural history, and the richness of the Diaspora. This full-length play explores the collision of race, gender, and fate upon the landscape of the sexualized Black female body. Claudette and Desiree Jarreau are happily married newlyweds until the mesmerizing Genevieve Baptiste, and then her ghost, decide to visit.

Playwright

Robyn Brooks

M.F.A., Creative Writing/Poetry, author of the poetry chapbook, venus in retrograde (Finishing Line Press, 2015), is a poet, playwright, and director. Brooks participated in the playwriting residency PlayGround, in residence at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, from 2007-2013. Her plays have been staged/read at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Tennessee Women's Theater Project, Theatre of Yugen, Theatre Rhinoceros, Los Angeles Women's Theater Project, and Potrero Stage. She has directed several of her own plays, as well as the works of other playwrights. A recent graduate from Goddard College, M.F.A., Creative Writing/Playwriting, she is a member of SF PlayGround’s Writers Pool 2023-2024. Brooks is a model in the internationally renowned Women En Large: Images of Fat Nudes, included in Martin Parr’s photo book collection, in the permanent collection at Tate Modern, London, UK.

Staged Reading Artistic Team

Fernando Vieira, Director

A multidisciplinary stage and cinema writer, director, and performer. Directing credits include the plays Las Sirvientas (2017), Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo (2018-2019), and Las Martiras (2022). Playwright credits: Me voy porque puedo (2016), Goodbye, Little George (2020) and Anormales (2021). In 2021, Vieira released the documentary Unlabeled and the digital play collection Dos piezas teatrales de Fernando Vieira. In 2023, Vieira debuted the experimental film Frenetic Journey Toward Muddledness. This is the second year Vieira has directed for the Cimientos Reading Series. Vieira has an M.A. in Liberal Studies.