Aaron Jafferis, Dahlak Brathwaite, and Daniel Bernard Roumain
Smooth Criminal
May 2024 - 2025
Playwright Aaron Jafferis and composers Dahlak Brathwaite and Daniel Bernard Roumain collaborate with five actor/rapper/singers to create a musical (about white people) to end all musicals (about white people). A simple question - who should inherit the family house when Aaron's parents die - ignites a wild argument between Aaron's blue-collar white cousins, his dynamite-wielding Slovak ancestor, his Black chosen family, and his ever-lovin parents. To figure out what his newborn baby should inherit, Aaron and friends follow the money to its source, and excavate the buried stories of all three halves of his family.
Marrying the hip-hop Aaron grew up with to the classical violin and Appalachian fiddle tunes of his ancestors, Smooth Criminal’s music births a sound old enough to crack the links between race and money, and new enough to lay bare the raw hearts beneath. To thump the audience’s raw hearts, poem-writing and dance breaks bump and grind Aaron’s race and class issues with yours.
The artists will begin their residency in May 2024 and will continue to partner with Quick as they continue to create the work throughout the 2024-25 season.
the creators
Dahlak Brathwaite (composer) is an award-winning playwright, composer, director, filmmaker, and performer. His work has been presented at Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, The Apollo, The Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Artist, The Public Theater, and on HBO’s last two seasons of Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry. Dahlak has received awards and support from NEFA, the Doris Duke Foundation, The U.S. State Department, and MAP Fund. He is a graduate of NYU’s Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program, and served as the Assistant Director for the national tour of the Tony-winning revival of “Oklahoma!”
Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) (composer) is a Black, Haitian-American composer who has worked with artists from J’Nai Bridges, Lady Gaga and Philip Glass to Bill T. Jones, Marin Alsop and Anna Deavere Smith. He has collaborated with the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Kennedy Center, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Sydney Opera House. He composed music for the acclaimed film Ailey; was Principal Composer with the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company; and won an Emmy for The New Look of Classical Music.
Aaron Jafferis (bookwriter/lyricist) is a playwright and poet whose works Activist Songbook, (Be)longing, Trigger, Stuck Elevator, How to Break and Kingdom have been produced or presented by The Old Globe, American Conservatory Theater, Long Wharf Theatre, and many others. Honors include a Creative Capital Award, Richard Rodgers Award, NEA Art Works Grant, NEFA National Theatre Project Grant, and multiple MacDowell Fellowships. Aaron is a former Open Rap Slam champion at the National Poetry Slam Championships.