Support Black Femme Artists: The Archive

Hi there, my name is Jordan Powell, the Artistic Producer of The Archive: New Works by Black Women. First of all thank you for giving me moments of your time to learn more about The Archive! I am a writer, director, producer, and poet. I graduated from NYU Tisch in 2022 but for as long as I can remember I have loved telling stories and making art in community. My work as a writer and director is to bring together Black women so we can, as a community, excavate our past and retell these stories through our bodies, voice that help us archive these stories. Through my art, I can learn more about my ancestors and use my art as a place to document and remember my people.

The Archive: New Works by Black Women is a stage reading showcasing Black female playwrights and Black femme directors. The plays will tell the stories of these women and serve as the act of archiving them as we store them in our collective memory. The playwrights will meet with each other over the course of January and a quick rehearsal process with a director and actors. The Archive is a part of my long life mission to create an artistic space for Black femmes to practice their craft, share their stories, and be in community with each other. Black femme artists have to jump financial hurdles to even be in space to dream into their creativity. The Archive strives to create a safe and generative space for creativity through community building and peer to peer feedback by giving artists the resources to experiment.

I am fully funding this project on my own as an act to support Black femme creatives and need your help to cover payment for artists and additional rehearsal space. Currently, I am providing a venue and rehearsal space for the playwrights (listed below). With these financial and venue resources, our goal is to share their personal stories to other black femmes so we can hold out histories.

As an independent producer using my own limited resources, I can commit to compensating artists with the revenue generated from these performances. The Archive takes a team of talented playwrights, directors, stage manager, and technicians and your generous contributions will ensure that these artists will be compensated fairly.

Meet the Playwrights

Jerrica D. White is a Brooklyn based, Ohio bred powerhouse, working to disrupt the way we tell stories in the American Theater, and more specifically, the way new plays get to the stage.

Jerrica examines the spectrum of Blackness with focus on family dynamics, relationships, love, mental health, and faith. Her work has been developed with the Classical Theatre of Harlem, Primary Stages, Workshop Theater, Ensemble Theater, and Cincinnati Black Theatre Artist Collective. As an author, she was most recently developed work in residence with Liberation Theatre Company in Harlem, as a Soho House Fellow, and a National Black Theatre Keep Soul Alive: Micro-development Workshop. She has worked on the directing team on productions at The Public Theater (JORDANS), NBT (Black Mother Lost Daughter), and The Brick (will there be). She will be directing Akeelah and The Bee by Cheryl L. West in Spring 2025 at Baltimore Center Stage.

She believes freedom is won through vulnerability and works to give artists a sense of community and a platform to share their stories. To fulfill this mission she founded OVRZLOUS, a studio built to produce revues, reading series, and editorial content, provide strategy to creative teams, and to create community. In 2019, she was on the producing team of the Broadway revival of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.

With a background in design, strategy, tech sales, poetry, and music, Jerrica can't help but think outside of "the box." She is proud to bring her full self to her artistic practice.

Her work is a defense for living.

She desires for her community to feel seen, encouraged, and know they are not alone. Her sound is cycles of self-love, healing, greater faith, and joy.

Camille Simone Thomas is a 5th generation Detroiter through her father’s side and a first generation Jamaican through her mothers. It’s important for her to name this because her work most often interrogates cultural legacies, familial healing, spirituality + ancestral wisdom, and the general kicking and screaming of how Black femmes get free despite the oppressive forces of colonialism, capitalism, and white supremacy.Her plays have been workshopped at New York Theatre Workshop, Playwrights Horizons, Sanguine Theatre Company, Blackboard Playwriting series, Lime Arts Theatre company, American Slavery Project, The Obie Award-winning Harlem9 and Detroit Public Theatre Company, Dixon Place, Workshop Theatre, Barter Theatre Company, The National Women's Theatre Festival, The Brick, and more! She was a 2023 Broadway Advocacy Coalition Artivism fellow where her play “What We Deserve” premiered as a staged reading at MCC theatre and has had additional fellowships with The Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute’s DEAR fellowship,Theatre Producers of Color, and Reel Sisters film fellowship. She was a 2024 finalist for the Eugene O’neill NPC for her play “At God’s Back”. A 2023 New Harmony Project finalist, 2023 Hedgebrook Writers retreat finalist, 2023 Catskills Creative Residency finalist, a 2023 Van Lier New Voices Fellowship Semi-finalist and a 2022 Art House Inkubator Finalist. Currently Camille is a writer in the Under Construction Playwrights Group working on “111 Orchestra Place” a play in her six play “Cotton & Cane” play cycle. During August and September she will be doing an artistic research fellowship at The Folger Library and Theatre in DC for her play “Sweetblood”, another play in her “Cotton & Cane” play cycle, during August and September.

Kamiah Vickers, a playwright and actress based in the heart of New York City, has felt a profound calling to share stories from a young age. Her time at New York University solidified the importance of her voice, culminating in the production of her original play, "What Happens Under The Tree." Through this work, she discovered a passion for crafting diverse characters that amplify typically muted voices, encompassing various aspects of life. As a larger Black woman, this mission holds particular significance for Kamiah. During her time at New York University, she successfully produced two original plays, creating valuable opportunities for her peers. Transitioning into post-graduate life, Kamiah has actively contributed to numerous theater projects and jobs, including the National 24-Hour Play Cohort, St. Ann’s Warehouse, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center. Her recent play, "In Conversation Of Love," was produced as a part of the New York Theater Festival’s season. Kamiah Vickers aims to not only leave her mark but also to foster opportunities for emerging artists and inspire the upcoming generation of playwrights.

Jordan Powell is a Jamaican American director, writer, filmmaker, designer, and educator. Her work as a writer and director is to bring together black women so we can, as a community, excavate our past and retell these stories through our bodies, voices, and new technological devices that help us archive these stories. Her work archives and documents the present so that we can be represented in the future. She has written and directed a film, Cutie, that was developed in the Nine Muses Lab taught by Bryce Dallas Howard. Has worked shown at The Wild Project, Playwrights Downtown, and New York Theater Festival.