Hot off the heels of a landmark 40th Anniversary season, Passage Theatre Company is starting season 41 ready to take on new creative challenges and present socially relevant professional theater for the capital city of New Jersey. The first show of the new season is a visionary staging of two of Amiri Baraka’s plays, Dutchman and The Slave, directed as two acts of one full-length play by Passage Theatre’s season 41 artist-in-residence Ozzie Jones. This production stars Phillip Brown as CLAY and WALKER, Deidre Rose as LULA and GRACE, and Peter Bisgaier as BRADFORD EASLEY.
Dutchman is an emotionally charged and highly symbolic version of the Adam and Eve story, set on a subway car, was the first critical success for playwright/activist LeRoi Jones, aka Amiri Baraka. The Slave takes place in the middle of a revolution as an examination of racial tension in contemporary America. The Slave is the story of Walker Vessles, a Black man who visits the home of his ex-wife, a white woman now married to a white professor, to retrieve his children.
Director Ozzie Jones writes, “The same actors will play both plays. Exploring the experience of the madness of Race in youth and middle age, in the risky passion of meeting/dating, and the gruff reality of marriage and divorce. In our production, Western Civilization itself is put under the microscope: its racism, its greed, its bigotry—but not its people.”
“The once-treasured words of Amiri Baraka, our former poet laureate, now have been forgotten,” shares Executive Artistic Director Brishen Miller. “It is time to remember those words—yet every poet knows there is no safety in words. We will be Not Afraid.”
Dutchman and The Slave will run three weekends, Wednesdays through Sundays, from October 30th to November 16th, 2025. Due to language and violence, this play is recommended for audience members ages 16 and up. Tickets are on sale at www.passagetheatre.org/tickets.
About Passage Theatre Company:
Passage Theatre Company is committed to creating and producing socially relevant plays and arts programming that deeply resonate with and reflect our community. Through professional productions, educational programs, and community engagement, we present diverse voices that inspire audiences and invigorate the art of live theatre.