Andrea Ambam
Andrea Ambam (she/her) is a storyteller and truthteller whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically-engaged performance artist and writer who believes in the art’s potential for movement-building and transformative justice, Andrea puts narrative to use – creating theatrical experiences that world bend and record truth.
Currently, Andrea is the Director of Programming at Level Forward, where she curates and produces story-driven/impact-minded events, and hosts the Anthem Award-winning third space and podcast More To Talk About. She has developed her multi-hyphenated artistic practice as a New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Artistic Fellow, Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, a Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) Artist-In-Residence, an Artistic Fellow with Signature Theatre, a Writing As Activism Fellow with PEN America, an Artivism Fellow with Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC), an Artist-in-Residence for Anna Deavere Smith, an EmergeNYC Fellow, and as a competitive public speaker/performer where she was awarded 10 national championships including "Top Speaker in the Nation'' three times, and gone on to debate conservative pundits on live TV.
As a performer, writer, and facilitator, she’s worked with Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Level Forward, Harlem9, Classical Theatre of Harlem, gal-dem, Abrons Arts Center, NYU Prison Education Program, NYU Verbatim Performance Lab, and others. Her plays include: Twelve Angry Black Women, 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 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 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 truthtelling 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.”
By enacting an all Black, all femme jury, TWELVE ANGRY BLACK WOMEN excavates the historied relationship between Black women and American Democracy, amplifies the multi-dimensional voices of Black womanhood, and manifests 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