LEARNING TO LOVE
Theatrical One Acts

One-Act Readings

Friday Oct 3rd, 7pm

Saturday, Oct 4th, 7pm

Harlem School of the Arts

645 Saint Nicholas Avenue

New York, NY 10030

The Gatekeepers Collective presents LEARNING TO LOVE in collaboration with Donja R. Love, an Afro-Queer playwright, poet, and filmmaker from Philadelphia.

Donja writes specifically about Black and Queer folx, for Black and Queer folx. He's the recipient of the 2018 Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award, the 2017 Princess Grace Playwriting Award. He’s the Lark's 2016 Van Lier New Voices Playwriting Fellow, The Playwrights Realm’s 2016/2017 Writing Fellow, and the 2011 Philadelphia Adult Grand Slam Poetry Champion. His work has been developed at Manhattan Theatre Club, Rising Circle Theatre, The Lark, and The Playwrights Realm. He's the cohost of OffBook, theater's only Black podcast; and he’s the co-founder of The Each-Other Project, an organization that helps build community and provide visibility, through art and advocacy, for LGBTQ People of Color. Select stage plays include: The Love* Plays, and soft.

Along with Donja, The Gatekeepers Collective team has refined an intergenerational development process in which narrative theatrical works reflect stories of self-acceptance as a rite of passage on the way to Queer/same-gender love.

Theatrical One Acts presents the work of three young Queer African-American playwrights who have been partnered with older SGL men in dialogue about their respective journeys from varying degrees of invisibility and self-denial to self-acceptance and love are reflected in the One-Acts plays they have crafted.

Featuring:

 Hello? Wayne Sanders! by Roderick Woodruff (FRIDAY OCT 3rd)

So I Can Love You by Najee Omar. (SATURDAY OCT 4th)

Roderick Woodruff (x/x)

IG:

Roderick Woodruff is a Detroit-born, Harlem-based playwright, musician, and storyteller whose work centers the lives of Black queer communities. He uses theatre, music, and film as tools of resistance and healing—amplifying voices too often silenced by systemic oppression and challenging toxic hyper-masculinity. 

His previous work includes A Boy’s Room, which premiered at Ars Nova’s ANT Fest ’21. Trained as a classical musician and holding a BFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University, Woodruff infuses his writing with a lyrical sensibility and a bold theatricality.

Through his work, he seeks to honor the resilience of Black queer youth while demanding visibility, empathy, and change.

Najee Omar (He/Him)

IG:

Najee Omar is a writer, performance artist, and organizer whose work moves at the intersection of storytelling and music. Think Essex Hemphill and Jerrod Carmichael spitting freestyles in Ntozake Shange’s living room. His art invites us to imagine a world where Black queer love and lives aren’t just seen—they’re celebrated.

As a poet, Najee writes with tenderness and urgency, often digging into identity, softness, and survival. His poems appear in Poet Lore Magazine (2024) and the anthology That's a Pretty Thing to Call It (2023).

As a playwright, he’s building a growing body of work rooted in real-life stories and heart. He developed his debut stage play, Little Black Book, through residencies at SPACE on Ryder Farm (2023) and Hi-ARTS (2024). He’s currently a 2025 Learning to Love fellow, writing a new play inspired by the life of a queer elder.

As a community-based artist, Najee designs original public art projects and cultural programming that center storytelling and collective imagination. He has been commissioned by institutions such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music (2019), The Public Theater (2019), Lincoln Center (2022), and The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2023). He was the first Artist-in-Residence with BRIC and University Settlement’s Intergenerational Community Arts Council (2018) and was named a Fort Greene Community Hero in 2022. He now serves on the board of the Fort Greene Park Conservancy.

When he’s not writing, he’s probably binging Real Housewives, biking through the city, or getting blissfully lost in music. Najee lives and loves in Brooklyn.