A new play by James Ijames
“I remember…the age I learned I was scary.”
We begin in a space you can’t quite place – is it a skate park? Is it a wave crashing?
In this mysterious location, we meet, one by one, a series of young black men. We don’t know, any more than they do, why they’re here – but over the next 90 minutes, we will discover much that we thought we didn’t know.
Described by Philadelphia-based playwright James Ijames as “an expressionistic buzzsaw through the contemporary myth that ‘all lives matter,’” Kill Move Paradise takes an unflinching look at the collateral damage of our biases and our assumptions about young black men.
Audacious, often funny and totally uncompromising, Ijames’ writing holds a mirror to the ways we rewrite the narrative of the slain – and gives us a chance to see the dead not as degenerates who deserved death, but as heroes who demand that we see them for who they are.
Longtime Know Theatre actress, Piper N. Davis, takes on a new role as the director of this poetic and powerful new script. And she has assembled a cast of both Know Theatre veterans and newcomers that bring vibrant life to these characters.
Returning to the Know Stage as Isa is local favorite Darnell Pierre Benjamin, currently onstage in Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and last seen at the Know in 2017’s Listen for the Light. Joining him as Grif is Landon Horton, who made his Know debut in 2016’s BlackTop Sky and starred as the Minotaur in 2017’s Heavier Than…
Two fantastic young actors make their Know Theatre debut with us on Kill Move Paradise: Elliott Young as Daz, and Cincy Shakes company member Crystian Wiltshire as Tiny.
As these four very different men find themselves thrust into this mysterious space, we discover along with them what circumstances dropped them here – and what future lies ahead for the ones cut down too early.
Kill Move Paradise is a love letter to black men, an elegy for the dead, and a call to action for all of us to examine what role we play in the carnage.
Calendar Listing
Production: Kill Move Paradise by James Ijames
When: 8 p.m. March 2, 3; 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 24
3 p.m. March 4, 11, 18
Where: Know Theatre of Cincinnati. 1120 Jackson Street, Cincinnati, OH 45202.
In historic Over-the-Rhine.
Tickets: $25 regular Price
$15 Rush tickets at the door 10 minutes before curtain (when available)
FREE walk-up tickets are available on Wednesdays, as part of Know’s Welcome
Experiment initiative. Reservations to Welcome Experiment performances
are $5.00.
Tickets can be purchased by visiting knowtheatre.com or calling 513.300.5669 (KNOW).