Thomas Bradshaw | Performance Space New York

Southern Promises

southern

” is situation satire with a vengeance, and each situation ups the ante for the audience.”
– Margo Jefferson, New York Times

“IMPRESSIVE! are a wickedly shocking double bill that unapologetically flaunt racial conflict…”
– Time Out New York

When the master of the plantation dies, he wills his slaves to be freed, but his wife doesn’t think that good property should be squandered. Pandemonium ensues. The play is inspired by the true story of Henry Box Brown who escaped to the north by mailing himself in a box. Southern Promises provides a unique portrait of the old south.

Playwright provocateur Thomas Bradshaw ignites the stage yet again in his signature inflammatory style. Following sold out and controversial runs at Performance Space 122, including Prophet and Purity, and elsewhere, including Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist and Cleansed, Bradshaw teams with acclaimed director Jose Zayas (a/d Talk Radio) for an explosive new creation that is not for the faint of heart.
Featuring: Hugh Sinclair*, Lia Aprile*, Erwin Thomas*, Jeff Biehl*, Peter Mccabe*, Sadrina Johnson*, Derrick Sanders*, Matt Huffman.

More Plays by Thomas Bradshaw:

PURITY, PROPHET, CLEANSED and STROM THURMOND IS NOT A RACIST are published by Samuel French, Inc. Learn more about them and get your copies today at https://www.samuelfrench.com

Presented in conjunction with The Immediate Theatre Company and Queens Theater in the Park. Produced in collaboration with the David Schwartz Foundation.

Southern Promises was developed, in part, through IRT Theater’s Artist in Residence Program.
www.irttheater.org

*Appearing courtesy Actors’ Equity. AEA approved showcase.

Photo courtesy of Yi Zhao

Southern Promises is part of Best of Boroughs: as part of our commitment to promoting excellence in the arts in New York City, PS122 partners with esteemed arts organizations from all over the city to present B.O.B., a tour of the brightest local theatre, dance and performance from the five boroughs.

September 7-27, 2008
Wed-Sat 8:30pm
Sun+Mon 7pm
No performance Mon, Sept 15
or Wed, Sept 24
Tickets from $18
$15 (students/seniors)
$10 (PS122 members)

Purity

purity

Following last season’s critical success, Prophet, playwright provocateur Thomas Bradshaw takes on race, academia, pedophilia, drug and alcohol abuse, promiscuity and infidelity in his signature stunning style. Directed by NTUSA‘s Yehuda Duenyas (Pastoralia), this explosive creation is not for the faint of heart.

Approximate running time: 70 minutes

WARNING: Purity contains scenes of a graphic sexual and violent nature that may not be suitable for all audiences.

Photo by: Shital Patel

“Tom Bradshaw’s most important contribution to society is snatching narrative and its elements back from the clutches of the Ordinary”
– Richard Maxwell

“…an ugly fantasy… Purity lures you with a comic touch and makes your laughs catch in your throat”
– The New York Times

“Vicious and harrowing… a profoundly disturbing play… the gratuitous detail is almost unbearable.”
– New York Sun

“…Not for the faint of heart. A whip-smart exercise in sublime discomfort…a brutal fantasia of sex, drugs, and racial politics.”
– Backstage

“Authentically hard-hitting and provoking.”
– nytheatre.com

“…achieves the trifecta of what it had been after all along – it frightens, it provokes and it causes contemplation. For those who have pushed through the more repellent moments of Purity, there is something satisfying here.”
– Americantheaterweb.com

“The line between Purity and pornography is a very fine one indeed… still had to admire Bradshaw’s furious bravado. If you have the stomach for this sort of thing, go with my blessings. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
– Gay City News

COME SEE THE SHOW THE NEWARK STAR LEDGER CALLS:

“cliched…deliberately offensive…potty-mouth…trash. A sloppily-written…crude cartoon of loathsome behavior…devoid of insight or inspiration. Nakedly depicted in excruciating detail.”

January 6 – 23, 2007

Opens Saturday January 6

Wednesday – Saturday at 8:30 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday at 4:30 p.m.

Jan 18 – 23: Additional performances during the COIL Festival 2007

$15($10 Members)

Prophet

Prophet Prophet

“Fasten your seatbelts. ‘Prophet,’ Thomas Bradshaw’s lacerating satire, has begun.”-The New York Times

Emerging playwright and provocateur Thomas Bradshaw (Strom Thurmond Is Not a Racist) has had his work produced at venues such as Walkerspace, Richard Foreman’s Ontological Theatre and Bard College. In his new work Prophet, Bradshaw continues to provoke and intrigue. A man wakes up one morning and decides he must kill himself. He is angry with himself for not hitting his wife every time she has an independent thought (as Abraham and Moses would have done). After she dies and God reveals to him that he is the new Prophet, the man takes a new wife, dresses her in slave chains, and begins to preach his newfound gospel of male domination. Simultaneously humorous and disturbing, Bradshaw’s Prophet explores controversial issues in startling and unexpected ways.

Photo: Daniel Rhatigan

Click to read the rave review in The New York Times.

November 30-December 17, 2005
Wednesday-Saturday at 8:30 p.m.
Saturdays and Sundays at 4:30 p.m.
$20($10 Members)