PLAYWRIGHT BIOS Tanya Maryoung is a native New Yorker.  She is a dazzler with a unique sultry jazz and gospel sound.  She has graced the stage and been blessed to work with such talents as the late, great Gregory Hines along with Joan Rivers, Whoopi Goldberg, Billy Crystal and Robin Williams for Comic Relief at the Heckshire Theatre.  Her styling development was encouraged by Ms. Louise Bethune of the Shirelles who became a constant support and encouragement for Tanya’s musical journey.  Currently she is collaborating with her mentor on an original stage play entitled, Deliver Us From Ourselves.  Her credits include session work for the late David Cole of C&C Music Factory, Lisa-Lisa and Cult Jam, The extraordinary Ms. Patti Labelle, Mr. Michael Cambell of the Drifters, Mrs. Cheryl Pepsi Riley and Cissy Houston.   Her work with The Weather Girls was very monumental for Tanya.  Tanya has had the opportunity to tour many countries abroad with Queen Ester Marrow of the Harlem Gospel Singers, affording her other prospective ventures with Theresa Thomas of Sacred Sounds Music featuring Tanya as "the funny nun" in Sister Act. The duoare currently working on a "social cabaret" set to go out sometime this year in Las Vegas.  Recently she thrilled audiences with her rendition of "Mama" with Vy Higgins, Mama I Want To Sing.  Tanya also has played a spicy senior citizen in, Silver Singles (Ellis Inc. Productions).  Tanya is a regular featured vocalist for Broadway's own, Mr. Lee Truesdale in his Truesies Kids.  Tanya is currently pursuing her BA and MA in creative writing and Theatre at the New School University and will release her debut album this year, God and Me and this workshop reading is the debut of her one woman play, Desert Flower's Truth.  She is excited about where her journey is taking her and firmly believes that the best is yet to come. SHABIARI Z. AHMED received her MA in creative writing from NYU in 1997. Born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1971, she came to the US when she was three weeks old. Her fiction has most recently appeared in the Gettysburg Review, Catamaran, The Asian Pacific American Journal and Salt. In 2003 she won The First Words Literary Award for South Asian American Writers. Ms. Ahmed’s screenplay Raisins Not Virgins is currently a finalist in the Tribecca Film Festival All Access program. Sharbari wrote the introduction to the Barnes and Noble digital library edition of Sense and Sensibility. It has been translated into ten languages. She has taught creative writing and English at NYU, Mercy and Manhattanville Colleges. In the fall of 2005, The Workshop Theater Company produced Raisins Not Virgins, the stage play; it has also been read at Artwallah in Los Angeles, the largest South Asian arts festival in the US, performed at Harvard University and taught in literature classes at Boston University. Ms. Ahmed is a co-founder of Muslims For Peace and lives with her son and husband in Darien, CT. Jacqueline Hankins Actor, Singer, Dancer, Composer, Lyricist, Pianist, Director, Videographer. Ms. Hankins has received rave reviews for her productions from many newspapers including Mario Fratti, America Oggi and Gene Kilik, Town and Village. Jeanette Toomer, Backstage NYC,  wrote……"a beautiful actress who is also Multiple-threat…”  One reviewer observed this force in action………"Two things about Jacqueline Hankins: she is lacking for neither talent nor energy.  She not only writes, she is a composer, director and actress.  She also handles the film editing and the publicity.  If that isn't enough, if members of the audience arrive early enough, she will greet them, show them to their seats and go about arranging the technical details of the production…” and Agnes E. Green of Spring Creek Sun said ……"Using every bit of her special brand of ingenuity, playwright-producer Jacqueline Hankins has carefully blended talent and imagination to craft a spicy bit of genuine entertainment.  A zany off-Broadway production, it cleverly mixes music, mystery, murder, and mirth with a rhyming beat".  A Murder At The Church is currently a semi-finalist in The Strawberry One-Act Festival.   NANCY NELSON-EWING has been a writer/actor for over twenty-five years in New York City.  Finalist in the prestigious Susan Smith Blackburn International Women’s Playwriting Contest in London for her play: Leaving Watermaine.  Chosen by the Tony Award winning regional theatre Crossroads for their Genesis Project of New African American Voices.  While there she developed LEAVING WATERMAINE. It was also part of the acclaimed Kitchen Sink Reading Series at the Coronet Theatre in Los Angeles. Ms Nelson-Ewing won an artist-in-residence position at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center where she developed another noted play entitled: Enemy Of The B.R.E.A.D.  Other titles include: The Unfamiliar, A Swanka’s Revolution, A Town Called Witness, See Me, A Time For Nobility  (Musical), The Remembering (Screenplay). Her plays have enjoyed very successful staged readings in New York City; one of which was at the John Houseman Theatre with a star-studded cast, including Ernie Hudson, Stephanie Mills, Douglas Turner Ward and Ellen Holly.  She has been a semi-finalist in the international Chesterfield Film Writing Project award,as well. She has worked as a story editor for Harry Bellefonte’s film production company, HarBel Productions, and done extensive script analysis for several film companies including New Line Cinema.  Ms Nelson-Ewing has written several children’s stories including the series The Girl With The Giggling Hair and Delaney Diction Master.  As an actress she debuted on Broadway in 1979 creating the role of "Nikkie Kay Kane" in Runaways.  She was also featured in Open Admissions on Broadway, as well as the replacement for Angela Bassette in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.  She's been featured in many television commercials, nighttime / daytime television, including "Vivienne Roxbury-Barnes" on All My Children, and Law and Order.   She is Artistic Director for Children’s Theatre Company of Peekskill NY; Program Developer and Director of Performing Arts Programming for children and youth that focus on character development and academic curriculums.    FRANCE-LUCE BENSON began her theatre career in Miami, Florida, where she received her B.F.A. in Theater from Florida International University.  Her play Silence of the Mambo, enjoyed productions in Florida at Art-Act Theatre, African Heritage Cultural Center, and Adunde Theatre Company for which she served as Founder and Artistic Director.   In New York, her plays Silence of the Mambo, Ascension, Destiny's Edge, and  Da Beat Trap have all been featured at Ensemble Studio Theatre's annual Going to the River Festival.  Da Beat Trap was also produced as part of the inaugural Shakespeare N. Haarlem Theatre Festival.  Her play Barbara's Keys was produced by the Negro Ensemble Company, where she served as resident playwright from 2000-2003.  She is currently attending Graduate school at Carnegie Mellon University, where she intends to earn an M.F.A. in Dramtic Writing in 2008.  Earlier this year, Ms. Benson was one of six playwrights featured at the Bricolage Urban Scrawl Festival in Pittsburgh, where her play No Place, Somewher was given its first production.  She would like to thank Kim and everyone at RHYTHMCOLOR for this opportunity.   Francine Crawford has worked in the entertainment industry for many years as an accountant, but her passion has always been to be directly involved with the production end of theater and/or television.  She received her BA from City College of New York and after accelerating in her concentration of media communication, she went on to produce, write and direct for the Video Works Collective where she contributed her talents to such productions as Arts and Education, Pink, White and Blue, and CUNY PCS Caucus. She also wrote Salt Peanuts, which was selected as part of a film festival dedicated to 9/11, and held at the MOMA.  Prior to City College, Francine wrote and produced plays for Dinner Theater fundraisers for churches, hospitals and other organizations. Currently she is the Drama Ministry Director at her church, Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Brooklyn and a creative writing consultant for Rico Workshop Production. She is also a producer with Phoenix Ensemble, Inc, the resident theater company at Newark Symphony Hall.  For the past three years she has produced plays such as Song in Your Spirit, Reatha’s Juke Joint, and CC’s Supper Club for DC 37’s annual Black History month event.  Francine is a child of God that wants to use her blessing of writing and producing to go wherever God leads.   Holli Harms plays have been done at Ensemble Studio Theatre, at the Arts Awareness Center and Perry Mansfield in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. As Co-founder and writer of The Lexington Group (a group of writers/performers/ directors) she co-wrote Step In And Stand Clear (winner Backstage Critics Pick For Best Ensemble). The Lexington Group's next ensemble show The Ballad Of Larry The Flyer was invited to both the New York Fringe Festival and Piccolo Spoleto Festival in Charleston, S.C. Holli is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre and Workshop Theater. She wishes to thank her angels Beth, Trista and Karine for spreading their stardust, the cast for donating their talent, Leslie for getting this whole thing started, Maria for her tweaking and always Mr. King for his support, love and belief. For Curt.   Rashidah Ismaili is a writer of short stories, plays and poetry. She is widely anthologized and has four collections of poems.  Rashidah has also written plays which have been performed nationally and internationally.  Ms. Ismaili served as Associate Director of the Higher Education Opportunity Program at Pratt Institute for fifteen years and now writes full time and conducts workshops, writing seminars and lectures.   Dawn Jamieson is a proud member of the Cayuga/Iroquois Nation. She is honored to be part of this festival and thanks Kim Weston-Moran.  Dawn is a Broadway actor, Inherit the Wind with George C. Scott & Charles Durning and The Price with Eli Wallach & Hector Elizondo and an Organizational Development Trainer and Administrator who recently began to write.  She earned a Masters Degree from Columbia University and has studied with several master acting teachers. Her other plays include: Silent Quest – The Faithkeepers, a drama about sexual abuse in the priesthood and in the native population, and The Escape of the Potted Plant, a comedic adventure about a disabled native woman who enters a nursing home as an undercover agent to solve a crime.  Thanks to The American Indian Community House (AICH), American Indian Artists, Inc, (AMERINDA), Times Square Playwrights (TSP) and her family and friends for the support of her art.  AEA, SAG, AFTRA,   Tere Martínez is a Puerto Rican playwright and actress.  She lives in New York City, where she has been working with the Latino theatre community for the past seventeen years.  Her theatrical adaptation of the popular memoir, When I Was Puerto Rican, by Esmeralda Santiago, has toured the United States and Puerto Rico for the past seven years.  Her two one-acts plays, My Last Night With Ruben Blades and For Mi Chichi, were part of the 2000 Latina Playwrights Festival at WOW Café in lower Manhattan.  In June 2001, the plays were produced professionally by Pregones Theatre in the Bronx.  These two pieces have toured theatres in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Puerto Rico.  During the 2002-2003 season, Pregones also produced  Departure and Return, which was directed by Bill Blechingberg. A staged reading of Agria...Tierra...Dulce, a full-length play about the effects of war on a Puerto Rican family of Spanish descent, was produced by the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture in November 2005.  Last year, Tere was commissioned by the Latino Experimental Fantastic Theatre in New York to write …and there's always the stars…, a play about bi-polarism and other mental disorders affecting teenagers today.  The piece is currently touring New York City public schools. Her play Borinquén Vive en el Barrio will premiere in March 2007 at the Hostos Center for the Arts and Culture. Tere received her B.A. in Drama from the University of Puerto Rico, and her M.A. in educational theatre from New York University.  She is a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

RHYTHMCOLOR "Presentation & Collaboration" Kim Weston-Moran, President RHYTHMCOLOR Assoc. Formerly Creativity In Motion Prod/East (CIM)   A creative service company.    MISSION:   - Partner with the arts community/corporations/business/academia to expdite special events, i.e. festivals, benefits, conferences and workshops.   - Develop audiences through innovative and strategic marketing for the arts organization and individual arts; and   - Produce, consult and manage the above projects.   HISTORY   2007: - Marketing Consultant for The Negro Ensemble Company in association with alumni of the NEC.   2006 - First Annual POTPOURRI! Festival, in association with The Drama Book Shop, Inc.   2002 - 05 - Founded and produced "WE IN HARLEM, BABY!" - a performance and visual arts salon, in association with JHC Capital, Inc.; ensconced in the garden of an Historical Harlem Brownstone.   2002 - Produced a benefit and on-line acution for Fire Partol No. 5 ART in collaboration with Christine Louisy-Daniel and benefitEvents.com   2000 - 02 - Marketing Consultant and Young Audience Coordinator for The 8th and 9th  African Diaspora Film Festivals in NYC and the Cannes Film Festival   - Publicity Liasion with the Black press for Marie Christine at Lincoln Center and Ain't Nothing But the Blues at the Booth Theatre on Broadway   - Project manager for Isaiah Owens' The Time for Healing Project and HCCI's Annual Light's of Hope Celebration at Jackie Robinson Park   1995 - 99 (CIM) - Associate Producer, The Second Black Theatre in America Conference '95 (Medgar Evers College).    - Produced benefit for Rains' indie film Zebra, growing up bi-racial in America   - Project Manager for THEATREMANIA '99 - Audelco's Ninth Annual Auction of Theatre Memorabilia   1990 - 92 (CIM) - Collaborated with the original Perks Supper Clup to present Eclectic Tuesday Nites (over 200 musicians, actors, poets, and stand-up artists).   Kim Weston-Moran, Producing Artistic Director for RA, is an actress who likes to make it happen!  Kim has been presenting since the 90’s. From 1989–91, she was Founding Artistic Director of Outta Control - Raw Comedy Cabaret, a multi-cultural political-satire sketch troupe, presented at many comedy venues and colleges in the tri-state area. During that time, Kim wrote numerous sketches and began to develop and flex her directing skills. In 2005/6 she was Director In-Residence for FDCAC monthly reading series at The Schomburg Center for Research In Black Culture, Ms. Weston-Moran currently, teaches an empowering acting workshop for young people at Medgar Evers College/ FDCAC, is a TAP/NYSCA Arts Consultant under The Harlem School of The Arts and works on special projects with Mr. Woodie King, Jr.’s National Black Touring Circuit, Inc. (NBTC); a 34 year-old touring company that presents black artists in 23 phenomenal musical and historical plays   As an actress, Kim recently had the great pleasure of honoring Ntozake Shange in The First Retrospective of her works, presented by NFT; created "Hera Jane" in Scott Sickles, The Intellectuals at The WorkShop Theatre Co., "Irina", the Black Russian wig mistress in Leslie Lees Blues In A Broken Tongue, the premier production for The Negro Ensemble Co in assoc. with the Alumni for NEC and Pemberton Productions. Kim was nominated for an AUDELCO Award three times and won for lead actress in Don’t Explain, directed by Rome Neal. Regional and touring credits include God’s Trombones, How The Other Half Loves, Raisin In The Sun, For Colored Girls….. and Same Time Next Year. Other credits include: Film - "Alma" in Ayoka Chenzira’s feature film, Alma’s Rainbow, Daresha Kyi’s award winning film; The Thinnest Line and had big fun creating some very bad girls and a mom in a few indie films by Juney Smith; TV - Divorce Court and Baker’s Dozen. Her one-woman show, Eyes In The Back Of My Head! Transformation - Live In Multi-Media, was presented at The Riverside Church Theatre and The Producer’s Club. Kim dedicates all her endeavors to her talented and prolific parents and to the higher spirit – the energy that helps in all things.  Ms. Weston-Moran is patiently awaiting her 15 mins!       Send us an email

	RHYTHMCOLOR Associates presents...   Schedule    Festival of Staged Readings  World Women Works March 11 - 30, 2007 Suggested Donation:  $5 (Unless otherwise specified) --------------------------------------------- SUNDAY - March 11 7:00 PM     ***Opening Night*** A SWANKA'S REVOLUTION writer N. N. Ewing director Aixa Kendrick A SWANKA'S REVOLUTION, first reading by  N.N. Ewing, will open the festival.  A SWANKA'S REVOLUTION dares to use Dignity as a weapon to teach a son and to prove that the pen is mightier than the sword to reach a father in this parallel tale of two worlds: South Africa and America and their intertwined history in the pursuit of justice.   WHERE:    THE NUYORICAN POETS’ CAFÉ 236 East 3rd St. [Aves B & C) Reading/Q&A Opening Reception/Cash Bar --------------------------------------------- WEDNESDAY - March 14 6:30 PM SAFE RETURN writer France-Luce Benson director Matt Morrow Nita, a Haitain-American woman must care for her father following his assault and kidnapping in Haiti, and finds herself entangled in a sadistic relationship with a journalist covering the story.   8:00 PM   SNAKE ISLAND writer Tere Martinez director Bill Blechingberg  Snake Island - Alejandra and Eve have been best friends since they met in Nicaragua seventeen years ago. Nicaragua transformed their lives in ways they never imagined. Now in their late thirties, these two friends find little time to see each other as they deal with their daily lives. A getaway to Snake Island seems like the break these two friends need. But instead of becoming an escape, this remote island forces them to look at their lives in ways that may change them forever.   WHERE:     Teatro IATI 64 East 4 Street ,6th fl 3rd & 2nd Avenues Reading/Q & A --------------------------------------------- TUESDAY -  March 20 7:00 PM THE STRIDER’S CLUB writer Ivy McCray director Susan Turner Watson The Striders Club is about an independent track team of young women with troubled pasts who are trying to redirect their lives through sports, only to face their biggest challenge before the Olympic trials when their lead runner is hurt.  The Striders Club is an adaptation of the play RUN'ERS by Ivy McCray, produced at The New Federal Theatre and Frank Silvera Writers Workshop.  Recipient of two AUDELCO Awards. WHERE:   The Frederick Douglas Creative Arts Center (FDCAC) 270 W. 96th Street  (Broadway and West End Avenue)  Reading/Q & A --------------------------------------------- THURSDAY -  March 22 6:30 PM RAISINS NOT VIRGINS writer Sharbari  Z. Ahmed director Shilarna Stokes Raisins Not Virgins is a tale of spiritual and political turmoil set against a backdrop of New York dating angst.  It traces the often hilarious journey of one Muslim American woman as she embarks on her own version of Jihad, complete with copious drinking and a dubious “art” project.   WHERE:     Teatro IATI 64 East 4 Street ,6th fl 3rd & 2nd Avenues  Reading/Q & A --------------------------------------------- SATURDAY - March 24 5:00 PM ON THE MANGLED BEAM writer Dawn Jamieson directer Jennifer Vermont Native American iron workers face important questions about their lives when they are brought in after 9/11 to move remaining walls and mangled beams so that the firefighters and police can do their work. 6:45 PM Welcome...YOU’VE GOT MAIL writer Francine Crawford director Bjai Pierce “Welcome…You’ve Got Mail” takes a close look at the life of an intelligent, responsible, well-mannered teenager, who is introduced to cyber space – “The Internet”.   We watch as she is enticed by the new and interesting people and information that is now at her fingertips.  As her interest peeks, her passion for cyber space grows as she explores this “teenage” website.  Watch as her behavior, attitude, and overall appearance change.    “A must see for parents and teenagers.” -Tony Wilkes, Phoenix Ensemble, Inc.     WHERE:     The Drama Book Shop, Inc. 250 W. 40th Street 8th / 9th Avenues Reading/Q & A --------------------------------------------- SUNDAY, March 25 2:00 PM A MURDER AT THE CHURCH! writer/director/musical director: Jacqueline Hankins During a rehearsal, the Church Organist, Claudine Peters, witnesses a murder. NO ONE BELIEVES HER!  Neither a body nor evidence of one was found.  Ridiculed, but undaunted, Claudine rambles through the lives of the church members for clues in order to solve the crime! “A new mystery musical . . . deeply rooted in the Black experience.  A multimedia presentation fusing video and stage acting with gospel, reggae, jazz and rhythmic verse.   It is a thoughtful, gripping dramatic presentation.”  - Angel Martinez, New York Independent Media Center   WHERE:    Creole Jazz & Supper Club 201 E. 118th Street (Corner 3rd Avenue) All-Inclusive Champange Brunch - $26 Reading/Q & A ---------------------------------------------   MONDAY, March 26   7:00 PM   ST. HELENA writer Holli Harms director Elizabeth London In 1972 on the secluded island of St. Helena's S.C., Ralph Wunder is an Austrian with a past now living on this low-country coast. He alludes to having played a part in The Third Reich and having known Hitler, a fellow Austrian and lover of art. A young woman, Gervais Marion, comes to repair his rotting dock and discovers sex, love and stolen art. Edna Smalls, descendant of the island's slaves, Ralph's maid and companion, challenges his studied attentions to this builder of docks. A triangle of love, lies and desperation quickly ensues.   WHERE:    The WorkShop, Inc. 312 W 36th Street 8th / 9th Avenues Reading /Q & A --------------------------------------------- THURSDAY, March 29 7:00 PM THE RICE KEEPERS writer Rashidah Ismaili director Passion The Rice Keepers is set in Nimba, a village in the Guinea Coast Country. The play deals with colonialism, betrayal, tradition, gender issues, impotence and continuity. It is a woman-centered because rice growing is female work and the duty of the rice Mother is to maintain the seeds for planting.  The ritual of dance and the mask are important elements in the play; especially because the mask embodies the past and predicts the future.   WHERE: The Drama Book Shop, Inc.  250 W. 40th Street 8th / 9th Avenues  Reading/Q & A -------------------------------------------   FRIDAY, March 30   7:00 PM   DESERT FLOWER’S TRUTH writer Tanya Maryoung directer Kim Weston-Moran The joy of the journey is not in the display of one's representation but the unfolding and revealing of one's "true" self.  In the desert there is absence of life, seemingly but for the lotus flower it is the torrential, dry places that cause this lovely bud to bloom.  Tanya Maryoung, writer invites you to discover your "Desert Flower's Truth".    WHERE:     The Drama Book Shop, Inc. W 44th Street (East of 8th Avenue)   Reading/Q & A ---------------------------------------------   THE COMPANY INCLUDES  Santana Dempsey    Anna Itty    Mike Jankowitz     Carmel Javaher   Marjorie Johnson  Jacob Knoll   Elizabeth London  Sol Miranda     Nkosi Nkululeko     Mizan Nunes Ryan    Victor Pierce    Martial Roumain     Krissy Shields     Matthew Sholler      Anar Vilas    LB Williams     Gregory Zaragoza     Dramaturges:   Owa, Ph.D   Patricia White   Tee Saralegui   RSVP 212.967.7711 Ext 3783 rhythmcolor21@verizon.net Limited Seating RSVP A MUST for Readings ADVANCE TICKETS for Benefit Suggested   Proud Members of Harlem Arts Alliance                                         AFFILIATIONS    Department of Education   The National Black Touring Circuit, Inc.   The Negro Ensemble/Alumni of NEC    NY Arts Alliance    Harlem Chamber of Commerce    FSWW    Times Square PlayWrights   For support materials for contributions, please send your:   Name/ Company Name    Fax #   Contact #'s   (All contributions and in-kind services are tax-deductible in accordance with NY State law.)   Have A Spectacular Day!!!  rhythmcolor21@verizon.net