Wednesday, June 17: Opening night after-show party at a local restaurant at no additional cost!
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Friday, June 26: After-show Q&A 

In 1839, Harriet Powell escaped from her Southern owner with the help of a freed slave who took her to the home of abolitionist Gerrit Smith. While hiding in his attic, a price on her head, she waits to be taken to Canada – and freedom. With her is Elizabeth Cady (before she married Stanton), an advocate for women’s equality.  Confronted with new and difficult ideas about race and identity, Harriet was forced to face the costs – and benefits - of freedom. This compelling play, written by Kyle Bass, premiered in October 2018, at Syracuse Stage, where he is the Associate Artistic Director.  Last summer, it was performed at the Franklin Stage Company, also in New York state. Mr. Bass received a commission from the Onondaga Historical Association to write Possessing Harriet. It is based on a true story. 
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BIOS FOR DIRECTOR MARK EDWARD LANG AND PLAYWRIGHT KYLE BASS
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Mark Edward Lang Theater and corporate training events have taken him to 35 U.S. states and around the world; including trips to Malaysia, Tanzania, Copenhagen and Istanbul.  Favorite roles include Alfred Lunt in the biographical drama Lunt and Fontanne: The Celestials of Broadway (FringeNYC and Classic Theatre of San Antonio; also playwright), Captain Robert Scott in Terra Nova and Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest (Hilton Head Playhouse), The Actor in ELTC’s The Guardsman (with wife Alison J. Murphy), seven roles in the Irish comedy Stones in his Pockets (Open Stage of Harrisburg), Kosti in Welcome Home Marian Anderson (Off-Broadway and tour); and ELTC’s The Rainmaker, Ah, Wilderness!, Biography, Zorro!, Christopher Bean, The Poe Mysteries, Dulcy, Butter and Egg Man, Why Marry?, The New York Idea, Voice of the City, The Dictator (2001), Four by Four and You and I (Best Actor Jacoby Award, 2007). He’s performed Shakespeare, Molière and new works in NYC and on tour; as well as theater workshops and directing, including ELTC’s Anna Christie.  Graduate of Vassar College.  Member AEA, SAG-AFTRA.
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Kyle Bass is the author of Possessing Harriet, commissioned by the Onondaga Historical Association, which received its world premiere at Syracuse Stage in 2018, and last season, at Franklin Stage Company. Kyle is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (for fiction in 1998 and playwriting in 2010), a semi-finalist for the Princess Grace Playwriting Award, and Pushcart Prize nominee. His other full-length plays include Tender Rain, Baldwin vs. Buckley: The Faith of Our Fathers, Bleecker Street, and Separated,, a piece of documentary theatre about the student military veterans at Syracuse University which was presented at Syracuse Stage and at the Paley Center in New York, directed by Robert Hupp. Kyle is the co-author (with Ping Chong) of Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo, which had its world premiere at Syracuse Stage and was subsequently produced at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York . Kyle’s one-act plays include Fall/Out, Theory of Night, Love is a Blue Velvet Box, Spoons, Northeast, and The Cutaneous Rabbit Illusion. His current projects include a new play titled salt/city/blues and the libretto for an opera based on the life and music of legendary folk singer and guitarist Libba Cotten, commissioned by the Society for New Music.  As dramaturg, Kyle worked with acclaimed visual artist Carrie Mae Weems on her theatre piece Grace Notes: Reflections for Now, which had its world premiere at the 2016 Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, subsequently produced at Yale Rep and the Kennedy Center. As a screenwriter, Kyle is the co-author of the original screenplay for the film Day of Days (Broad Green Pictures, 2017), which stars award-winning veteran actor Tom Skerritt, and he is the author of the screenplay adaptation of the novel Milk by Darcy Steinke. His plays and other writings have appeared in the journals Callaloo, Folio, and Stone Canoe, among others, and in the essay anthology Alchemy of the Word: Writers Talk about Writing. He is also the drama editor for the journal Stone Canoe.  Kyle has taught in the Colgate Writers Conference, has been guest lecturer in playwriting at Hobart & William Smith Colleges, was faculty in the M.F.A. Creative Writing program at Goddard College from 2006 to 2018, and from 2005 to 2018 he taught playwriting in Syracuse University’s Department of Drama and theatre courses in the Department of African American Studies. Kyle is now full-time faculty as Assistant Professor in the Department of Theater at Colgate University where he previously served as the Burke Endowed Chair for Regional Studies, and has been named the 2019/20 Susan P. Stroman Visiting Playwright at the University of Delaware.  Kyle holds an M.F.A. in Playwriting from Goddard College,  is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and is represented by The Barbara Hogenson Agency.