Bubbly Black Girl Creator Kirsten Childs to Discuss the Legacy of Black Women Artists as Part of Encores! Off-Center Lobby Project

A pre-show discussion led by Kirsten Childs, creator of the 2000 musical The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, will be a part of the New York City Center Encores! Off-Center's Lobby Project series. This and other special events will take place before select performances of the Encores! Off-Center season.

The series will begin featuring songwriters who submitted original songs inspired by Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s musical Assassins. The winners, Sebastian Durfee, Deepali Gupta, Jess Newman, Taylor Ferrera and Bob Ferrera, will present their pieces before three evening performances of the show (July 13 at 6:30 pm, July 14 at 7:00pm and July 15 at 7:00pm) and participate in a nightly panel to discuss their influences and inspirations.

On July 26 at 6:30pm, Ayodele Casel, Helga Davis and Okwui Okpokwasili will participate in a discussion about their experiences onstage in connection with Childs’ The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin. Casel will also perform a piece commissioned especially for The Lobby Project. The following evening, July 27 at 6:30pm, Childs will discuss the legacy of black women artists in America and the contemporary nature of her work.

For Maurice Sendak and Carole King’s 1980 family musical Really Rosie, The Lobby Project has commissioned original songs from Broadway Bound Kids and Rosie’s Theater Kids. Each youth group will perform an opening number about their neighborhood and New York City in 2017. Performances (August 2 at 6:00pm, August 4 at 6:00pm and August 5 at 1:00 and 6:00pm) will be followed by a discussion about how the groups created their songs.

The Lobby Project takes place in City Center’s Grand Tier lobby one hour before select performances and is free for that evening’s ticket holders. Led by Artistic Director Michael Friedman, the popular Encores! Off-Center series returns for its fifth season of landmark off-Broadway musicals including Assassins, directed by Anne Kauffman (July 12-15); The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin, directed by Robert O’Hara (July 26 and 27) and Really Rosie, directed by Leigh Silverman (August 2-5).