November 2 2024

3B Development Series

IN RESIDENCE: November 5 – 11, 2024

Intent and Process

Being Chaka is the culminating result of TÉA Artistry’s multi-year exploration into how Americans apprehend the construct of race in their lives and how this affects the way they treat each other and the personal, practical, and institutional decisions they make. As the New Ohio/ IRT Archive Residency company, TÉA was given the opportunity to collaboratively create two works of Insight art, Paradigm and Being Chaka.

Chaka is a Black teenager from the Bronx who is grieving the loss of his father who died of complications from sickle cell disease. The doctors said there was nothing more that they could do. Chaka thinks it was actually about what they were willing to do.

He’s recently transferred to East Prep High, an elite private school in Manhattan that’s newly implemented critical race theory, which might seem very forward-thinking, but quickly turns into a fraught terrain where the impacts of inherited privilege and oppression play out on a teenage battleground.

As Chaka tries to find his place in this new environment amidst echoes of the past, he becomes increasingly enraged with a system that not only failed his father, but continues to demand his loyalty.

Putting it back on its feet at IRT Theater : November 7, 2024

Created by Chuk Obasi, Vieve Radha Price, Tara Amber, Nalini Sharma and Talya Mar
Written by Tara Amber, Chuk Obasi and Nalini Sharma
Directed by Vieve Radha Price and Chuk Obasi

IRT Theater is a grassroots laboratory for independent theater and performance in New York City, providing space and support to a new generation of artists. Tucked away in the old Archive Building in Greenwich Village,  IRT’s mission is to build a community of emerging and established artists by creating a home for the development and presentation of new work.

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts and the New York State Legislature; New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in Partnership with the City Council; A.R.T./New York’s NYC Small Theatres Fund made possible with support from the Howard Gilman Foundation & support for ASL interpretation provided in part through funding from Access A.R.T./New York.

ACCESS: IRT is a fully wheelchair-accessible facility. Please reach out to Kori Rushton if you have any accessibility questions or concerns, krushton@irttheater.org