The BTMR Project in association with CD Forum will bring three days of theatre, film, music, visual art, staged readings and storytelling to Seattle this November with the inaugural BTMR Festival, running November 6 – 8, 2026 at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute, 104 17th Avenue South, located in Seattle’s historical African American arts and cultural district. This project is supported, in part, by a grant from 4Culture.

The BTMR Festival grows out of Black To My Roots: African American Tales from the Head and the Heart, the play by Kathya Alexander and Reneschia Brown. Following its 25th Anniversary production at the Langston Hughes Performing Arts Institute in Seattle in November 2024, the BTMR Project expanded its work, including a presentation of Black To My Roots at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland in August 2025, where it received strong reviews and a Black Excellence Award. What began as a play has grown into a broader creative project spanning theatre, music, film, literature and visual art. Across four days, the BTMR Festival will bring that work together through performances of:

• BLACK TO MY ROOTS: African American Tales of the Head and the Heart by Kathya Alexander and Reneschia Brown (theatre)

• HAIR’S BREATH: Music Inspired by BTMR by Adra Boo and Blake Madden (music)

• BLACK D*CK MATTERS by Kathya Alexander (theatre)

• MWEUSI MPAKA MIZIZI, Swahili adaptation of BTMR by Muso Simekha (staged reading)

• DAVID & JONATHAN, by Kathya Alexander (staged reading)

• NEGRO PASSSION PLAY by Kathya Alexander (staged reading) The BTMR Festival will also include:

• KATHYA ALEXANDER HONORS (reception, ceremony, book reading and signing)

• BTMR and BDM Film Previews, produced and directed by Muso Simekha

• BTMR Photo Exhibition, photography by Justice Beitzel