Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Drama
Winner of the Chalmers Play Award
A rhapsodic blues tragedy, Harlem Duet could be the prelude to Shakespeare’s Othello and recounts the tale of Othello and his first wife Billie (yes, before Desdemona). Set in contemporary Harlem at the corner of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X boulevards, the play explores the space where race and sex intersect. Harlem Duet is Billie’s story.
News & Reviews
“… filled with intelligence and compassion, humour and anger, outrage and understanding.” —Toronto Star
About the Author
Djanet Sears is an award-winning playwright and director. Her plays include Harlem Duet, which won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Drama and the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, The Adventures Of A Black Girl In Search Of God, which was shortlisted for a 2004 Trillium Book Award, Afrika Solo, Who Killed Katie Ross and Double Trouble. Djanet’s other awards include the Martin Luther King Jr. Achievement Award, the Harry Jerome Award for Excellence in the Cultural Industries, and a Phenomenal Woman of the Arts Award. Sears is the driving force behind the AfriCanadian Playwrights’ Festival, and a founding member of the Obsidian Theatre Company. She is also the editor of Testifyin’: Contemporary African Canadian Drama, Vols. I & II, the first anthologies of plays by playwrights of African descent in Canada. Djanet is an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto.
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