Andrea Ambam
Andrea Ambam is a storyteller, truthteller, and worldbender whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged writer, performance artist, and curator of experiences, Andrea seeks to reflect the times and generate new timelines via critical commentary, unruly imagination, and multi-modal creations that interrogate how we get free.
Currently, she is developing new theatrical work as a Hi-ARTS CRITICAL BREAKS Artist in Residence and serving as the Director of Programming at Level Forward - a public-benefit entertainment studio - where she produces and hosts the Anthem Award-winning audience engagement platform More To Talk About. She has developed her multi-hyphenated artistic practice through fellowships and residencies with PEN America, New York Theatre Workshop, Anna Deavere Smith, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, The Playwrights Realm, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Signature Theatre, and EmergeNYC; and collaboration with JACK, Classical Theatre of Harlem, NYU Verbatim Performance Lab, NYU Prison Education Program, Harlem9, and others.Her plays include: Twelve Angry Black Women (Fault Line Theatre’s Irons In The Fire Finalist), Fragile State (Eugene O’Neill National Playwrights Conference Semifinalist, Rattlestick Van Lier Fellowship Semifinalist), R(estoration) I(n) P(rogress) (NYU Educational Theatre/Provincetown Playhouse 2023, ANPF Semifinalist 2021), Rehearsing Justice: A One-Woman Show (Presentations with BAX 2022 & BAC 2021), and Angelina Weld Grimke (Classical Theatre of Harlem/Playbill, Broadway Podcast Network).Andrea publishes form-bending writing and original collages on her Substack — Freedom Portals.
Andrea has been pulsating at the intersection of art, current events, and social impact for over a decade, beginning as a competitive public speaker where she was awarded 10 national championships including "Top Speaker in the Nation'' three times, and went on to debate conservative pundits on live TV. Now, Andrea lives in Brooklyn where the rent is too damn high and holds a Master’s degree in Art & Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Andrea lives in Brooklyn where the rent is too damn high and holds a Master’s Degree in Art and Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
During her time in residence, Andrea will continue the development of TWELVE ANGRY BLACK WOMEN.
About TWELVE ANGRY BLACK WOMEN
TWELVE ANGRY BLACK WOMEN, written by Andrea Ambam, is a Black feminist re-interpretation of Reginald Rose's Twelve Angry Men wherein the United States of America is on trial and its fate lies in the hands of an all Black, all femme jury. In this theatrical truth-telling experience set amidst an America stamped as a “backsliding democracy”, audiences are invited to witness - and participate in - a deliberately black femme deliberation space questioning the past and continuance of “the American idea” and manifesting the consequences America would face if Black women voted with our rage.
An epic and whimsical ensemble play that dances with form, taps into ritual, and defers to satire and surrealism, TWELVE ANGRY BLACK WOMEN ultimately asks the question: Everyone always thanks Black women for saving American democracy when the going gets tough...What if we finally ended it instead?
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Image credit: Lexi Webster Photography