Man Made, a new play by Dhari Noel and directed by Clare Mottola, is about New York, Power, Race, Gender, Ancestors, and Descendants—in a word, Us.
Follow this link to access Cherry Picking’s dramaturgical page created as the culmination of a week-long residency at The Wild Project.
(flexible - 1nb3w5m) The play tells the story of Seneca Village, a small but mighty African American community thriving on the outskirts of a polluted, overpopulated metropolis: New York City. When the City’s elite residents call for the destruction of Seneca to make room for a landmark “Central Park,” a natural haven at the center of an urban sprawl, the people of Seneca find themselves fighting for their homes, their lives, and their legacies.
“Man Made” is an interpretation of Seneca’s vibrancy and resistance as it confronted its own destruction in the name of urban renewal. Having written this play while my students led a takeover of their school to demand holistic institutional change for Racial Equity, and as my home, the Harlem community, continues to fight the ongoing erasure ensured by gentrification, I am certain that Seneca Village and its legacy haunt us. Seneca screams, it laughs, it cries, it dances. It shouts, “us, us, us.”
Staged Reading, Cherry Picking/Wild Project, dir by Clare Mottola 2022
Virtual Reading, Cherry Picking Festival, dir. by Clare Mottola, 2021
Reading (15-Minute Version), Cherry Picking Festival, dir. by Clare Mottola, 2019
