PPCC to host workshop featuring Daniel Beaty

Dan Beaty, the young and nationally renowned African American acting and performing phenomenon, will perform his one-man play on the African American Experience as part of the Colorado Festival of World Theatre. This will take place in Colorado Springs Jul 27 - 29, on the stage at the Centennial Campus of Pikes Peak Community College. In addition, Mr. Beaty will conduct a Special Workshop on Wed, Jul 26, at the Business of Art Center (BAC) in Manitou Springs for all interested youth.
Daniel Beaty's provocative play Emergence-See! explores these heavy questions with a surprisingly fresh and quirky approach.

Daniel Beaty is an award winning actor, singer, writer and composer most recently seen on the third and fourth seasons of HBO's Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, as a guest artist on NBC's Showtime at the Apollo with Ruben Studdard, and on BET's 106 & Park. Daniel graduated with Honors from Yale University with a BA in English & Music. He also holds an MFA in Acting from American Conservatory Theatre (ACT).

Daniel has worked throughout the US, Europe, and Africa in television, solo concerts theater, and opera including performances at The White House, The Apollo, and The Kennedy Center in tribute to Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis. Daniel is the 2004 Grand Slam Champion at the world famous Nuyorican Poet's Café and the Fox Networks National Redemption Slam Champion. He has performed on programs with artists including Jill Scott, Sonia Sanchez, MC Lyte, Mos Def, Tracy Champan, Deepak Chopra, and Phylicia Rashad.

Emergence-SEE!
The year is 2006. A slave ship rises out of the Hudson River in front of the Statue of Liberty sending the nation into a whirlwind of emotion and exploration in this explosive solo tour de force featuring slam poetry, multi-character transformation, and song.
Award winning artist Daniel Beaty portrays a cast of 40 characters including a homeless man, a scientist, a republican business executive, a street vendor and an 11-year old boy from the projects who all respond to the phenomenon. A slam poet named Rodney is scheduled to perform in a poetry slam that evening, but is delayed by having to retrieve his schizophrenic father from the site of the ship's rising. While Rodney and his brother go to see about their dad, the audience is treated to the poetry slam already in progress.

Through the characters' individual responses to the ship and their varied testimonies on identity and personal freedom, Emergence-See! weaves a stirring commentary on modern black life.

Daniel's writings and compositions have been performed at The Public Theater, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), New York Theater Workshop, La Mama, American Conservatory Theater, Yale University, The NAACP National Convention, The SCLC National Convention, and various other venues. His show Emergence-SEE! has been reviewed as a "brilliant, spellbinding performance" by the Amsterdam News and "a dazzling 90 minutes…full of memorable moments… intense…hilarious" by the New York Times.

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