THE SLAYING OF INNOCENCETHE SLAYING OF INNOCENCE

Eric Anderson (Artistic Collaborator) has been a part of the Transformational Prison Project since it first started as a participant while incarcerated and getting the opportunity to run the program alongside three other formerly incarcerated individuals in 2020 and becoming the Director of Communications and Special Projects in January 2022. He is responsible for TPP’s communications and website, social media sites, office management, business pipeline, and co-develops programming. He currently has a fellowship with Communities for Restorative Justice. His mission is to help develop and implement processes and programs that will aid Returning Community Members in their reentry and help in finding healing within our communities.

Wayland Coleman (Artistic Collaborator) was born in Birmingham, Alabama, on January 18, 1978. His family was very poor. In order to escape the poverty of the south, they moved to Massachusetts, in 1988. At age 11, he was given a one-year scholarship to the Worcester Art Museum, because of drawings he had created as a child. While he attended the Art Museum, he was introduced to hustling in the streets. An accomplished writer, Wayland Coleman has contributed a chapter to My Body Was Left on the Street: Music Education and Displacement, published by Brill. His visual art has been exhibited in the Race, Prison, Justice Arts gallery at Boston University.

Onyx White (Artistic Collaborator) is a musician, artist, and entrepreneur seeking to harness the power of technology to create digital spaces where the boundaries of expression are pushed beyond limits. He is the oldest of nine siblings and grew up in the heart of Boston, facing the harsh realities of poverty and systemic racism.

Christopher Thompson (Composer), also known as “Master Christopher”, is a multidisciplined performer-composer who creates innovative ways to blur the distinction between genres by merging contemporary art music, jazz, and percussion, with notated rap. He released his debut album “Music Desegregation”, which featured nine unique works spanning a plethora of musical styles and instruments while collaborating with over thirty artists and musicians. Performing in venues like the John Coltrane International Jazz and Blues festival in High Point NC, the Percussive Arts Society International Convention in Indianapolis, the Eurovision Song Contest in Dusseldorf Germany, and writing for ensembles like Alarm Will Sound, International Contemporary Ensemble, Bergamot Quartet, and the Cold Steel Drumline, he continually expounds on the porous limits of genre and creates intercultural music. Originally from Greensboro, NC, Chris is now based in Philadelphia, PA. He is pursuing a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Composition at the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. He also serves as Lecturer of Music for the City University of New York at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn. Chris previously taught as the director of percussion studies at High Point University, where he led a comprehensive percussion program. At HPU, Mr. Thompson directed the Panther Pulse Drumline and was the assistant conductor of the Wind Ensemble. Thompson is passionate about community engagement and inclusive opportunities for music performance. He is the founder and director of Motivational Arts, Performance, and Sound (M.A.P.S.), a company that teaches vision through an inspirational performance of the arts. As a Motivational Performer, he presents an inspirational message in various community settings and encourages underrepresented groups to realize their dreams while experiencing a high level of the arts.

NATHAN ALAN DAVIS’s plays include Nat Turner in Jerusalem (New York Theatre Workshop; Stavis Playwright Award), Dontrell Who Kissed the Sea (NNPN Rolling World Premiere; Steinberg/ATCA New Play Citation), and The Wind and the Breeze (Cygnet Theatre; Blue Ink Award, Lorraine Hansberry Award).

Three of his plays will receive world premieres in 2023: The High Ground (Arena Stage), Eternal Life Part 1 (Wilma Theatre) and Origin Story (Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park). In recognition of his body of work, Nathan has received a Windham-Campbell Prize (2021), a Steinberg Playwright Award (2020), and a Whiting Award in Drama (2018). His commissions include Seattle Rep, Audible, True Love Productions, and BMG Music. He is a Playwrights’ Center Venturous Fellow, a Lecturer in Theater and Berlind Playwright-in-Residence at Princeton University, and serves on the faculty of the Sewanee Writers’ Conference.

Also a screenwriter, he has worked on TV and feature projects for HBO Max, Netflix, AMC, and Paramount. He holds a BFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, an MFA from Indiana University Bloomington, and is a graduate of the Lila Acheson Wallace American Playwrights Program at Juilliard.

Jennifer Harrison Newman (Stage and Movement Director) is a New York based theater artist that works extensively with artists across disciplines pushing the boundaries of dance, opera, and theater. Recent site-specific and theatrical work includes numerous Broadway and regional dance and theatrical productions including The Lion King, The Radio City Rockettes, and a momentous anniversary performance with the original cast of West Side Story. Associate Director and Movement Director: Triptych( Eyes of One on Another) (BAM/Next Wave 2019, International Tour); Place (BAM/Next Wave Festival 2018, LA Opera 2020), Angel’s Bone (New Visions Festival Hong Kong 2018, Beijing Music Festival 2019, Los Angeles 2020); October in the Chair (ARACA Group 2014). Choreography and performance: Land of Broken Dreams (Park Avenue Armory 2021); AFROFEMONONOMY (PSNY 2021); when you walk through fire, hold your breath (Little Island NY 2021); Black Lodge (Beth Morrison Projects film 2021, stage premiere 2022); We Were Everywhere (Princeton University 2019); Infinite Hotel (Prototype Festival 2019); within the sand and sea (Chale Wote Festival, Accra Ghana 2018); The Geneva Project (JACK, BAAD!, Yale University, International Festival of Arts & Ideas, Central Station Festival Seoul Korea), Bread of Heaven (LABA LIVE), Woman Bomb (Baryshnikov Art Center), If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Motherfucker ( Yale School of Drama), The Children (Yale School of Drama), Bulrusher (New Georges); David Rousseve/Reality (company member; Lula Washington Contemporary Dance Theater (company member).

One of the thought-leaders at the forefront of music and justice, Dr André de Quadros is a professor of music at Boston University, where he holds affiliations in African, Asian, and Muslim studies, and in prison education. For the past fifteen years, Dr. de Quadros has devoted the majority of his professional life to projects in social justice and peace building. He directs the following choirs: Common Ground Voices (IsraeliPalestinian-international), the Manado State Uniiversity Choir (Indonesia), the Muslim Choral Ensemble (Sri Lanka), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Countries Youth Choir, and VOICES 21C. He co-directs Common Ground Voices / La Frontera (US-Mexico) and The Choral Commons a media initiative. As a scholar, conductor, educator, and human rights activist, his professional work has taken him to the most diverse ensembles and settings in more than forty countries, spanning professional ensembles, and including projects with prisons, psychosocial rehabilitation, refugees and asylum-seekers, victims of torture and trauma, and peacebuilding work in the Arab world and Israel. He is the artistic director of the London International Music Festival, and Conducting 21C: Musical Leadership for a New Century at the Eric Ericson International Choral Centre in Sweden. He is the editor of the following series: Cantemus (earthsongs), Music of Asia and the Pacific (earthsongs) Salamu Aleikum – Choral Music of the Muslim World (earthsongs), and Songs of the World (Hinshaw). Among his many publications is his 2019 book, Focus: Choral Music in Global Perspective, published by Routledge.