Alum Nicole Daniels will be having two performances of her show KIDS ON BIKES at 6:30 PM and 8:30 PM on March 23rd in the Emily Dickinson Hall Studio Theatre!

Kids on Bikes : A one-woman interview-based play about race and neighborhood surveillance in "post-racial" America

Overview

Kids on Bikes is a one-woman play written from interviews in a real Baltimore neighborhood.  The play explores what happens to a self-proclaimed "liberal" and "diverse" community when surveillance and conversations about who belongs in the neighborhood begin to arise. The story chronicles the experience of an 18-year-old mixed-race summer nanny as she navigates her own identity through interactions with twelve different neighbors in their homes, at neighborhood meetings, on the street, and in coffee shops. 

Creation

Kids on Bikes was created from 32 interviews Nicole Daniels conducted in the summer of 2013 when she was a third year at Hampshire College, in preparation for her Division III. The play is set in a now fictionalized Baltimore neighborhood: Armistead Point. Nicole had been a summer nanny in Armistead Point for two years and chose to return there, but could have chosen any number of communities that self-identify as being liberal, accepting, and diverse, but still struggle with race-based assumptions. Following Trayvon Martin’s death, many people suggested something so horrific could not have happened in their neighborhood; however, as Nicole thought back to the neighborhood watch postings she had seen online when working in Armistead Point, she realized there was potential for a conversation about our notions and responses to who belongs and does not belong in our communities. Nicole wondered what happens when people who consider themselves beyond seeing race have to face their reactions and assumptions about people who they think should not be in their neighborhood.

Biographies

NICOLE DANIELS (Playwright and Performer) currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, but is a Baltimore-native and graduate of Hampshire College. Nicole completed the two-year acting program at the William Esper Studio and currently works as a Costumed Historical Interpreter at the Tenement Museum. Nicole is thrilled to be bringing Kids on Bikes back to Hampshire College after it was most recently produced by Single Carrot Theater in Baltimore and after having toured it to the Chicago Fringe Festival, New York University, and the City University of New York. www.nicoleolivedaniels.com  

TAYLOR REYNOLDS (Director) is a New York based theatre artist from Chicago and one of the Producing Artistic Leaders of The Movement Theatre Company [TMTC]. She has worked as a director, assistant, and collaborator with numerous companies including March Forth Productions, The United Solo Festival, UglyRhino Productions, The 24 Hour Plays, Harlem Arts Festival, and Everyday Inferno Theatre Company.

Recent directing credits: Things I Don't Want to Talk About by Gina Femia, An Informal Presentation on the Finite Nature of Atoms, Martyrs, Happenings, and Space (Or, BURN) by Pascale Smith, FOOD by Rhonda Marie Khan, Think Before You Holla (devised through TMTC's Ladder Series), Accidental Burlesque by Gina Femia (developed through the Audrey Residency at New Georges), People Will Talk About You Sometimes by Sarah Matusek. 

She is a member of the Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab and New Georges affiliated artist. BFA in Directing from Carnegie Mellon University. iamtaylorreynolds.com