Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies (2023)

HOODED: Or Being Black for Dummies premiered on June 12th, 2023 at 59E59.

This production was made possible with additional support from the Cowan Slavin Foundation, our associate producers, generous donors, and supporting organizations. A special thank you, too, to ART NY, BAX, Clark University, Juilliard, and Queens Theatre..

The Story

Marquis is a book smart prep-schooler living with his adoptive white family in the affluent suburb of Achievement Heights; Tru is a street savvy kid from the inner city of Baltimore. Their worlds overlap in a holding cell — a first for Marquis, who has been protected by his family’s privilege, but all too familiar to Tru. They butt heads, debate, wrestle, and ultimately prove Nietzsche and Tupac were really saying the same thing.

Described by The Washington Post as “entirely fearless,” Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies is a wickedly whimsical story chronicling two polar experiences of growing up black in America.

About the Playwright: Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm

Making his NYC Off-Broadway playwriting debut with Hooded, Tearrance Arvelle Chisholm, named “a Person to Watch” by American Theatre Magazine, brings a voice to the theatre that rings as so truly his own. He skillfully and bravely plays with language –the sound of it, its musicality, with all its ironic possibilities. He explores style in the way of a jazz musician, a poet, a beatmaker, and a visual artist.

Tearrance premiered his play P.Y.G. at Studio Theater as both playwright and director. He won a Helen Hayes award for Hooded: Or Being Black for Dummies at Mosaic Theater.

Br’er Cotton had a critically-acclaimed production by London’s Theatre 503 (nominee, Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright), and the play received an NNPN Rolling World Premiere. He has written for a number of TV series and is currently developing his own show, the sci-fi dramedy Demascus, with AMC and Gran Via Productions.