LEARNING TO LOVE
Theatrical One Acts

One Act Readings
Wednesday, December 13th
7 PM

Aaron Davis Hall (CCNY) Theater B
129 Convent Ave at west 134th Street.

The Gatekeepers Collective presents LEARNING TO LOVE in collaboration with Jeremy O’Brian, a Mississippi-born, Brooklyn-based playwright who currently teaches writing and Black Atlantic Theatre at The New School Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts and New York University. He also holds a Masters in African and African Diaspora Studies from The University of Texas at Austin and a Bachelor of Arts from Tougaloo College.

Along with Jeremy, 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 two 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:

“Hope In Pieces” By Donathan Walters

Follows three black men on a quest to solidify their legacy through identity and sexuality who become connected in the most unforeseen circumstances.

“The House that Jack Built” by Jay Mazyck

Jack wants the unlimited freedom to use and control his body. But when he and his friend sneak out on a mission to a whimsical nightclub, he comes in contact with powerful forces whose only desire is to keep Jack still.

Co-Sponsored with

Donathan Walters (He/Him/His)

IG: DonathanWalters

DONATHAN WALTERS (he/him/his) was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. He graduated from Chapman University with a BFA in Screen Acting and a minor in Film Production - where he wrote, directed, and produced several short films, increasing his appetite for artistic expression in-front-of and behind the camera.

Having lived in Los Angeles for four years, he relocated to New York City where he graduated with his MFA in Acting from NYU's Graduate Acting Program at Tisch, c/o 2022. Donathan made his NYC Theatrical debut in the Classical Theater of Harlem's acclaimed production of Twelfth Night. Some of Donathan's credits as an actor also include motion capture work on the NBA 2k18 and 2k19 video games, Voice Over work for Uber, and in the upcoming season 4 of Evil on Paramount+.

Writing, He says, “is like a lonely stroll in the forest of my soul. I have so many questions. I hope to gauge provocative conversations amongst my peers that might bridge generational gaps, processing hidden traumas amongst Black people, Black men. Mental health is important to me. Art is my therapy, and I want to be a conduit to healing, to provide a space for others who've walked a similar path with similar curiosities."

Jay Mazyck (He/She/They)

JAY MAZYCK (he/she/they) is a Black queer creative from Brooklyn, NY. They starred in the Off-Broadway production of Chisa Hutchinson’s Surely Goodness and Mercy (Keen Company) as well as Michelle Tyrene Johnson’s radio play Buried Roots. A reading of their first full length play, MAD, was included in the 2019 season of Corkscrew Theater Festival and they were one of the seven playwrights award commission in the 11th season of the Obie Award-winning Fire This Time Festival.

Their short play, If Men Were Flowers premiered on the streaming platform All-Star in 2020. Their short play Dude premiered at the 2020 Frigid Queerly Festival and The Reparations Show produced by Kevin R. free. Their play ‘Grieved’ won the 46th Samuel French OOB Short play contest. Most recently, their full length digging, like monkeys, our grave in [gilead] was developed as part of the Fire This Time Festival’s New Works Lab.

Mazyck is an alum of the prestigious Royal Court Theaters Writers Group in London and is currently a BTU Rise Fellow in partnership with Black Theatre United and Williamstown Theater Festival as well as a 2021-2022 SoulCenter Fellow.