Presented in collaboration with HARLEM WEEK and the Harlem Arts Alliance 

By Debra Ann Byrd 
Directed by Tina Packer 

Classically trained actress and playwright Debra Ann Byrd's one-woman "living memoir" and musical play, Becoming Othello, explores her upbringing as a young girl raised in Spanish Harlem and the painstaking process of expressing that sometimes troubled personal history through her acclaimed gender-switched performance as the Moor of Venice. Byrd's life as a single mother and as an artist provide her with the grounding and depth necessary to inhabit Othello, but it is the willing bravery to share her unseen truths that most resonates with her audiences. In this new adaptation of the play, produced by Harlem Arts Alliance in honor of the annual HARLEM WEEK celebration, she mines the Shakespearean tradition to showcase the struggle, triumph and excellence of the uptown Black experience. 

CREATIVE TEAM Playwright & Actress: Debra Ann Byrd; Director: Tina Packer; Movement Director: Dyane Harvey-Salaam; Assistant Director: Martin Jason Asprey; Costume Design: Gail Cooper-Hecht; Sound Design: David D. Wright; Scenic Design: Devon Drohan; Stage Manager: Gwen Gilliam; Assistant Stage Manager: Aime Jay; Executive Producer: Voza Rivers; Production/Press Liaison: Donna Walker-Kuhne; Team Harlem Shakespeare: Jackie Jeffries, Natalie Clarke; Documentary Director/Asst. to Ms. Byrd: Mary Coleman Way

BECOMING OTHELLO: A Black Girl’s Journey was developed in part through a residency at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, University of Warwick, Folger Shakespeare Library, Columbia University Office of Government and Community Affairs, Shakespeare & Company, Southwest Shakespeare Company and The Center at West Park.

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