28
Oct/20

HOST INVITE

28
Oct/20

Who: Tarik Davis, Micah Sherman, Paul(i) Reese, Mark Stetson, Steve Capps, Greg Kotis, Suni Reyes, Kristin Stokes, Priya Patel, Don P. Hooper, Kelly Aucoin
What: Virtual one-act horror play
Where: The Tank online
When: Saturday, October 31, $10-$125, 7:00
Why: Actor, filmmaker, comedian, and improv teacher Tarik Davis grew up on a diet of sci-fi and horror films on VCR in the 1980s and ’90s, resulting in, among other things, his making the award-winning 2017 short Page One, about danger on a movie set involving a Black actor whose character gets killed on the first page of the script and a white man playing a uniformed police officer. Davis has now returned to the horror genre with Host Invite, a work-in-progress he will be presenting on Halloween night through the Tank’s online portal. “The people who make theater with or without an actual theater are stronger than this damn virus will ever be,” Davis, who appeared on Broadway in Freestyle Love Supreme, noted on Facebook. “Artists are stronger than the forces of racism, fascism, unregulated capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, constitutional originalism. If ever there was a moment to make theater it’s THIS moment.”

The cast and crew for Host Invite includes director Micah Sherman, tech designer Paul(i) Reese, Mark Stetson, Steve Capps, Greg Kotis, Suni Reyes, Kristin Stokes, Priya Patel, Page One director Don P. Hooper, and Kelly Aucoin of Billions and The Americans. Part of the Tank Artists-in-Residence Program, the sixty-minute virtual play deals with a Zoom call and a whistleblower from the multinational conglomerate Tangle. “I had an overwhelming urge to figure out a way to get all the wonderful people who made my debut on Broadway such a dream paid,” Davis continued. “Art is work, work deserves compensation. ‘I’ll write a play for Zoom,’ I thought. And now here we are.” Tickets are pay-what-you-can-can, from $10 to $125.