Jenn Kidwell and the blackening

Jennifer Kidwell (instigator, writer, performer) is a performing artist with a penchant for getting people to do things they never thought they’d do. Recent original projects include Those With 2 Clocks (The Wilma Theater) and Underground Railroad Game (2017 Obie Award for Best New American Theatre Work; 2018 Edinburgh Fringe First Award; Lucille Lortel, Helen Hayes nominations). Kidwell is currently collaborating with Chef Laquanda Dobson on Giving Thanks and with Ars Nova Workshop/Immanuel Wilkins on Recess. Recent performances include The Welkin (Atlantic Theater Company); Ocean Filibuster (PearlDamour); Eternal Life Part 1, Fat Ham (2021 film), and Antigone (The Wilma Theater); Syllabus for Black Love (jaamil olawale kosoko); Home (Geoff Sobelle, 2018 Bessie Award); Adrienne Truscott’s Still Asking for It (Joe’s Pub); and Superterranean, Fire Burns Hot: Little Reno!, I Promised Myself to Live Faster, and 99 Break-Ups (Pig Iron Theatre Company). Kidwell has been published in Black Body Amnesia: Poems and Other Speech Acts, in Movement Research Performance Journal #45, and at hyperallergic.com. She was a 2020 Visiting Artist at Duke University and a 2021 Visiting Artist at the University of Pennsylvania. She received a 2013 TCG/Fox Resident Actor Fellowship, 2015 and 2021 Leeway Foundation Art and Change Grant, 2016 Pew Fellowship, 2017 Independence Fellowship, 2020 Ruthie Award, 2020 Hodder Fund Grant, 2023 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant, and 2025 Helen Merrill Award.

Brandon Kazen-Maddox (they/them) (ASL artist) is a choreographer, dancer, actor, filmmaker, and third-generation heritage signer raised in a culturally Deaf household. Their work centers Deaf, disabled, BIPOC, and LGBTQAI+ communities through inclusive, interdisciplinary performance in American Sign Language, spoken English, and simultaneous communication or SimCom. They have shared their story nationally, including at TEDx, the Getty Museum’s Day of Unreasonable Conversation, NASPA, and PBS’s Stories from the Stage. Their work has been recognized with a Creative Capital Award, NEFA NDP Grant, Mertz-Gilmore Foundation Grant, Gucci’s Chime for Change, and the Times Square Midnight Moment (“Georgia”). Television credits include The Good Fight, High Maintenance, and PBS’s Brief but Spectacular. As a 2024 WNET/ALL ARTS artist in residence, their 30-minute special SOUL(SIGNS): Making Music Visible premiered in April 2025. Theater and dance credits include Bill T. Jones’s Deep Blue Sea (Park Avenue Armory) and Fresh Tracks (New York Live Arts). Kazen-Maddox holds an MFA from NYU Tisch and is a cofounder of Up Until Now Collective.