Michole Directs keeps you informed of all Michole's latest projects, productions, and events.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Wednesday, November 21, 2012
11/26/12: Reading of a new James McLindon play for iD Theatre
If you are in NYC the Monday after Thanksgiving, I will be directing "Story of My Life," a new play by James McLindon, as part of iD Theater's NYC Sit In reading series.
Check out the details for the Play reading - and let me know if you'll be there! It is listed as a 6:30pm start time this Monday, November 26th.
MB
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Looking for Plays for Feminine Mystique reading series
Check out www.projectytheatre.org for past readings and playwrights.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Development with Sean Christopher Lewis
Sean Christopher Lewis on his lovely play, GOODNESS,
this March. Stay tuned for more info on this collaboration!
Friday, January 20, 2012
LoveSick - Half Rock Concert/Half Theatre in February
Friday, July 29, 2011
Racey Plays Reading Series Next Up: GOODNESS on 8/15
Each reading has had its own unique location, cast of new and old PY actors, and
adoring audience to applaud and share a drink afterwards.
We're looking forward to this month's reading of "goodness" by Sean Christopher Lewis.
He has a very impressive bio for such a young guy, and we are proud be able to share this Philly guy with NYC. SEAN CHRISTOPHER LEWIS’ plays have won the Kennedy Center’s Rosa Parks Award, the 2010 National New Play Network’s Smith Prize, a Barrymore Award from the Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia, a Central Ohio Critic’s Circle Citation, a National Performance Network Creation Fund Grant, the William Inge Fellowship and more. He served as National New Play Network Emerging Playwright in Residence at Interact Theatre in Philly and as Playwright in Residence at the William Inge Arts Center in Independence, Kansas. He can also be heard on the radio as a contributor to NPR'S This American Life.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Winners Announced: Site/Sight Specific Video Monologue Contest
Project Y's Top 5 Monologues are:
Congratulations to the winners and BIG THANKS to everyone who submitted a monologue.
We will be shooting these five monologues soon, and will let you know
when they are up and running on YouTube.com
Check out last year's Confessionals Videos on the Project Y YouTube page.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Talkback with Racey Plays playwright: Jessica Dickey
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Staged Reading of Yellow by Jessica Dickey
Monday, May 2, 2011
Announcing: 2nd Annual Video Monologue Contest
Sight/Site Specific Video Monologues: NYC
We are looking for 60 second monologues about incredible sights at incredible sites in New York City.Were you recently chilling on the Great Lawn in Central Park with a friend and ended up witnessing a mugging?
While waiting on the subway platform for the F train did you get flashed by a woman in a trench coat?
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Talkback with Racey Plays playwright: Antu Yacob
| Mourning Sun by Antu Yacob at ART NY on April 18, 2011 |
Our April 18th reading of MOURNING SUN was a huge success.
We had a standing-room only crowd of 55 audience at ART NY's Bruce Mitchell Room.
And when the reading was over, nobody wanted to leave - everyone wanted to talk about
the play! That's exactly what this series is all about.
Thank you to everyone who was able to come out and support this amazing
play and playwright.
Antu and I had a chance to catch up and reflect on the reading. Here's our
online discussion:
MB: Why did you write MOURNING SUN? why is this story important to you as a person/as an artist?
AY: I wrote Mourning Sun because my sister is a medical student and was fortunate enough to volunteer at the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital a few years ago as part of her studies. The stories she told me of the women she met unsettled and stirred my spirit in a way that altered me forever. All I could think of was that any one of those girls could have been me. It incensed me that this thing is 100% preventable. The information my sister shared with me compelled me to further research fistula and find what customs, what were my own people doing to our own girls and women to create and continually contribute to this epidemic. The script is the result of my research and my way of educating others about what my sisters are going through.
MB: What's next for the play? What's your ultimate goal long term for this story?
Thank you to everyone who was able to come out and support this amazing
play and playwright. Sign up for our email list to keep informed of the next steps
in MOURNING SUN's development as Antu Yacob tries to get it up and on its
feet in NYC.
MB
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Racey Plays Reading Series: Mourning Sun


Currently she teaches a song as monologue acting course to high school students at Somerset County Vocational & Technical School in New Jersey. Although writing poetry & short stories have long been a passion of hers, Mourning Sun is Antu's first script.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Racey Plays follow-up: a chat with Kevin R. Free

KEVIN R FREE and I have a post-mortem discussion of his RACEY PLAY reading
"A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People"




In our reading, the stage directions were really important to the audience experience of the play. In thinking of staging the play, do you feel that your stage directions have their own voice?
My stage directions do have their own voice... Thank God. I like to see myself as a "Negro Intellectual," someone who says a lot of things before he gets to a point. I'd like my stage directions to read that way: long-winded often, funny at times, self-important always. I am not sure that any of my plays make sense to the reader without some form of my Negro Intellectual to hold hands and usher the reader to the danger (or comedy) of the next scene. I think it's my way of saying, "I'm only angry and edgy in my plays; I'm more charming in real life. Read on (bitches)." I was happy to have David Carl read the stage directions and shocked and delighted that he became such a funny part of the reading.
The main character in "A Raisin in the Salad: BPFWP" is KevinRFree. I know that I was excited to have the REAL Kevin R Free play the role. Moving forward, do you want to play yourself in the play?
I don't think I want to play myself in this play (unless, of course, it is a requirement of the theatre who produces it). The play is about a specific moment in my career and I felt at the reading that I was tied to what I wrote, when I really wanted to say other things. Hmm. Now that I am writing this, I suppose if I had more rehearsal time and were directed by someone else, I would have found a way to make it work - even write newer material for the Kevin R. Free character. There's also a moment in the show - "Black Plays FOUR White People" - in which Kevin R Free reveals the (very bad) beginnings of a solo show. That scene was really hard for me to play straight, without giving a wink and a nod about how I know how bad it is... Maybe that's a good reason for me to play myself - because I'd be playing myself in the past, playing the me who doesn't really see his own humanity in the same moments that others see it. I have colleagues who tell me that I MUST play myself. Perhaps they want to see the guts & gore associated with this play firsthand. Hmmm. I'm still thinking about it.
Although since this reading, I have FINALLY seen "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" by the New York Neo-Futurists, this reading was my first introduction to seeing that kind of work done.
Does the play work as a neo-futurist piece?
As part of the rewriting process, how do you streamline the action of the play?
Thanks so much, Kevin, for being the first playwright to kickoff this series
for Project Y!
MB
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Racey Plays Reading Series Kick Off! A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People by Kevin R. Free
We are excited to kick off our Racey Plays Reading Series with A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People written by the illustrious Kevin R. Free.A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People is a dangerous comedy that looks at popular culture and artistic and racial marginalization. In 20 short parodies of plays, films, and various pop culture events, A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People, tells the story of one artist who, dogged by his conscience, is ready to leave behind his life’s work.
Kevin R. Free, the creator of Black Plays for White People, wants OUT. He announces to his adoring public that he will move on to creating work that is more in line with his sociopolitical beliefs. But his creations – Whitelady, Blackboy, Blackgirl, Whiteboy, Whitegirl (the stars of his Black Plays for White People) – frightened that they may never again see the lights of the stage, revolt. They perform the roles they were meant to play, taking the words already written for them to create new plays, thus trapping Kevin R. Free in his own artistic identity prison.
Why do a reading series about Racey Plays you might ask?
My world got shaken up the first time I traveled to India with my boyfriend to meet his family and travel. It was the most foreign sensation to be looked at as foreign. Everywhere I went, people stared at me. In the streets, beggars and merchants swarmed around me. That's normal. I was obviously a tourist and that's who gets goods hawked to them. But I got more attention that just for being a tourist. I was stared at by EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE. I had never felt all those eyes on me before. Mostly they were looks of interest, but it still felt so strange to be looked at because I was so glaringly different. When I mentioned this to my boyfriend, he laughed and said - more or less - "Welcome to my world! That's what its like for me every day at home. This is the only time I'm not stared at like that." That really floored me. I mean, to suddenly feel what it is like for someone considered a "minority" in America to be in a room, a street, a city, a country, where you stand out is an intense sensation that makes you become self-aware and self-conscious. This feeling stayed with me forever after that.
Since then, I've had many experiences of feeling "outside" the racial majority. The more countries I experienced, the more I was able to again confront the feeling that race, the color of one's skin, plays a huge role not only in how people perceive an individual, but in how that individual begins to perceive herself. I became keenly interested in race - in trying to figure out all the implications. I even wrote a one woman show about it.
Now I am looking to share the voices of others artists who are trying to explore the intricacies of race and culture in their work. Ultimately, these are plays about identity, about what it means to be a human being living in a skin, a culture, an ethnicity, or a language that just doesn't quite fit the majority mold.
We hope you can join us for the kick off to the series with Kevin's play, it will no doubt be an incredible night of theater.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
We're growing and we're taking you with us...

Our 2011 Fundraising Campaign is underway! We've grown tremendously over the past year and we owe that to some new enthusiastic company members and the support and encouragement of people like you. Yes, you!
If you're just becoming familiar with us this past year, our company has quite an interesting history.
In 1999 Project Y’s founders united as artists fueled by an unorthodox model: make the highest level of theatre possible for 5 years and then disband. We were aware of the root causes in the struggles of theatre companies in America, and a limited life inherently conquered them. We shed the influence of external expectations and tackled the work that challenged and engaged us. And as a result, a remarkable groundswell of acclaim, support, and attention arose from audiences and artists alike.
After 5 years and 14 productions, we stayed true to our mission and dispersed to the top graduate training programs in the country, expanding our minds and our contacts. After naturally landing in New York City upon graduation, Project Y Theatre Company was re-launched in the spring of 2009.
Project Y is now primed to take another leap: expanded programming, more performances and longer runs, with grants and larger fundraising events in the works. As we sit on the precipice of growth in NYC, we need you now more than ever.
A 100% tax deductible donation will allow us to continue to foster the work of new artists and create theatre that is a vital part of our society.
Imagine what we could accomplish with your continued support! Looking forward to sharing our work with you in 2010...Friday, September 24, 2010
The Revival: Meet the Choir and Congregation
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Revival: Judy Bowman, Casting Director, discusses casting the show and tips for aspiring actors
"This is one of the best cast assemble for an Off-Off Broadway show in a long time, perfectly directed by Michole Biancosino...it's certain to win over fans of good theater."
- NY press
"What a perfect play for these times...an enormous tale and fortunate to have a cracker jack cast that is ready, willing, and more than able."
- NY Theatre Guide
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Beyond Gay: LGBT Performances for The Revival

"What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? For it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence and there are so many silences to be broken."





