Assistant Professor of Theatre
Brittney S. Harris
Assistant Professor of Theatre
YWCA SAR Challenge 'Performing Arts' Advocate
Served as the 'Performing Arts' advocate for the YWCA's 2022 Stand Against Racism (SAR) Challenge. Annually in April, YWCA South Hampton Roads and YWs across the nation raise awareness about the negative impact of institutional and structural racism in our communities and seek to build community among those who work for racial justice.
This year’s theme is We Can’t Wait: Equity and Justice Now!
Thank you to WTKR News for the opportunity to tell and highlight stories that matter to our communities. Check out the interview and article below.
Spring 2022 Solo News
Short performance piece ‘Pedigree’ is making its national interdisciplinary conference debut this Spring 2022. This show explores the lengths to which one declares to take back their power after years of mental and emotional torment at the hands of societal tormentors from her past to the present.
In the wake of the political backdrop of the Black Lives Matter Movement, this applied theatre work is relevant to our Black community in providing insight to a cathartic resolution and engaging in civil dialogue beyond the headlines and #hashtags. Each conference appearance was accompanied by a moderated talkback on my artistic process and “personifying resistance through narrative”.
Highlighted
Annual Interdisciplinary Conference African, African American & Diaspora Studies (AAAD)
Northeast Modern Language Association (NeMLA)
Global Conference on Women and Gender (GCWG)
Midwestern Conference on Literature, Language & Media (MCLLM)
New Project Alert: The In[HEIR]itance Project- Exodus Coastal Virginia
Premiering in May 2022, I'm serving as the Asst. Director and Research Contributor on this newly devised theater project, The In[HEIR]itance Project: Exodus Coastal Virginia.
Project Overview: an examination of the history and lived experiences of the people of Hampton Roads in relationship to the themes and narrative of the book of Exodus. A final play will premiere at the Virginia Arts Festival in May 2022 at the Attucks Theater.
Community partners include (not limited to) Virginia Arts Festival, The Attucks Theater, Zeiders American Dream Theater, Teens with a Purpose, and WHRO.
KCACTF Region IV Directing Achievement
I was recognized by KCACTF Region IV Achievement in Directing for Intimate Apparel, November 2021. The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF) is a national theater program involving 18,000 students annually from colleges and universities across the country.
Through extensive adjudication process, Intimate Apparel was not only recognized for its achievements in directing, but also in acting, costuming, and set design.
With its many acknowledgments, the primary focuses of KCACTF aims to encourage, recognize, and celebrate the finest and most diverse work produced in university and college theater programs and encourage colleges and universities to give distinguished productions of new plays, especially those written by students; the classics, revitalized or newly conceived; and experimental works.
Read full production details here
Official Selection, James River Short Film Showcase
Pedigree is an official selection in the 2022 James River Short Film Festival hosted by the James River Film Society and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
Now in its 27th year, JRFS is an annual juried competition festival devoted to the short. The centerpiece is an international juried competition for short films (20 minutes or less) from around the globe that best embody what the James River Film Society and James River Film Festival are all about – the art of film and film as art.
Pedigree will be live-streamed starting January 28th through Jan. 30th via jamesriverfilm.org.
Directed Intimate Apparel, ODURep
For the Fall 2021 mainstage season for ODURep, I directed Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage.
From my director statement/vision:
"our redefining of Nottage’s breathtaking text aims to comb out the desires within and expose them at their seams. I’ve come to describe our production as a patchwork quilt of woven narratives stitched together over time through the themes of gender, race and class, and religion. We seek to open a space within which to examine, through a different lens, the silhouettes of the “history of the present” and its complicated tensions wrought of contradictory desires....
For the past 6 weeks, the entire cast and production team have diligently rehearsed, revised, and rehearsed again still within the confines of a pandemic wrought world."
Read full my director statement/vision here
Top 4 Finalist for 2021 'The Breath Project' Festival
My piece Pedigree has been selected as one of the top 4 finalist in the nationally acclaimed 2021 The Breath Project Festival (TBP).
Through art, action and advocacy, The Breath Project seeks to build a more equitable theater community in this country, and actively dismantle structural racism in the American Theater. In partnership with theater companies across the country, the free festival featured 24 world premiere works created by multidisciplinary theater artists of color, all 8 minutes and 46 seconds in length.
The theme is "8:46", and all submissions must be a recording of a live performance of original work that has been created in the past year, and must be 8 minutes and 46 seconds in length, in remembrance of George Floyd and his untimely, unjustified death.
Pedigree premieres December 4th, 2021 with a talk-back with the artists at
5pm PS | 6pm MT | 7pm CT | 8pm ET
Newest Solo Work: Pedigree
Drafted and filmed between Summer 2020-2021, Pedigree features a first-time protester sharing her emotional experience with being arrested and disrespected. This solo performance piece is about personal acceptance and recovery from the inexplicit influences of racial hatred and violence.
To complement each showing, there will be a subsequent talkback reflection with the audience addressing issues of racial and personal disparities of protesting and the permission to challenge the status quo.
Pedigree will debut at the Association for Theatre in Higher Education (ATHE), featured in the BTA Panel: Personifying Resistance: Devising Theatre for Social Justice with Adanma Barton, moderated by Omiyemi Artisia Green