HartBeat Ensemble Announces Residency at Trinity College; Inaugurates Residency with "Citizen James"

Press release

HartBeat Ensemble and Austin Arts Center Announce Professional Theatre Company's Residency at Trinity College

HartBeat Ensemble Residency at Austin Arts Center to Launch with CITIZEN JAMES, or The Young Man Without a Country February 12-21

January 21, 2026/Hartford, CT...HartBeat Ensemble, under the leadership of Artistic Director Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr. and Managing Director Rhoda Cerritelli, announced today the formalization of the company's partnership at Trinity College. After successful engagements of Jimmy & Lorraine: A Musing (2024) and Where We Stand (2025), HartBeat Ensemble will serve as the Resident Theatre Company at Trinity's Austin Arts Center, under the leadership of Executive Director Deborah Goffe.

HartBeat's residency at Trinity will include productions, workshops, community outreach programs, internships for Trinity College students, and presentations of work and artists in the spirit of HartBeat's commitment to social justice theatre. In addition, Trinity College will provide space and opportunities for HartBeat's Youth Play Institute as well as a new play development program.

HartBeat's residency at Trinity College will be inaugurated with an encore production of Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country by playwright Kyle Bass will run February 12 through 21, 2026 at the Austin Arts Center's intimate Garmany Theatre, 300 Summit Street in Hartford. This powerful and insightful solo show, starring James Alton and directed by HartBeat Ensemble Member Joann Maria Yarrow, finds Baldwin, a young author and activist, at the pivotal moment when he contemplates leaving behind the racism of the United States to find refuge in Paris.

HartBeat Ensemble Artistic Director Godfrey L. Simmons, Jr., who is a visiting lecturer on Theater at Trinity, states, “HartBeat Ensemble is thrilled to announce our collaboration with Trinity College and its Austin Arts Center. After joining the Trinity faculty, I had a greater appreciation for the college’s commitment to the community and to the arts. The students, faculty and staff truly embraced our first two productions and we look forward to more and deeper connections that will bring artists, the Hartford community, and the Trinity population into conversation.”"

Austin Arts Center Executive Director Deborah Goffe adds, "We at the Austin Arts Center, and Trinity College more broadly, are excited to formally launch this partnership with HartBeat Ensemble. I’ve witnessed HBE’s work over many years and have been inspired by their commitment to locality, artistic excellence, and well-honed community-building processes. I look forward to collaborating with the HBE team to develop and expand mutually beneficial programming that bridges campus and Greater Hartford communities, provides access to HartBeat’s artistic and social processes, and draws connections across disciplinary, social, and conceptual boundaries on campus in ways only the arts can."

About Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country

Young James is an unknown aspiring “Negro” writer whose first novel has yet to be published. He awaits his flight, having just left his family with the news of his decision to flee America for refuge in Paris. He speaks no French. He has a one-way ticket and $40 in his pocket. Witness James Baldwin as he decides he must do something to save himself from the violent reality of racist America in 1948, a decision that sets him on the path to becoming a brilliant, powerful, and prophetic voice of the Civil Rights era and beyond. Citizen James is a bridge that connects the past to our now. The play premiered in August 2024 at Syracuse Stage where it was produced in partnership with 100 Black Men of Syracuse, Inc.

Tickets for Citizen James... are $30 for General Admission; $25 for senior citizens and non-Trinity students; Trinity students and faculty/staff are free with ID or a Trinity email address. No one turned away for lack of funds. The production runs February 12 through 21 with performances scheduled as follows: Thursday, February 12 at 7:30pm; Friday, February 13 at 2pm & 7:30pm; Saturday, February 14 at 7:30pm; Thursday, February 19 at 7:30pm; Friday, February 20 at 7:30pm; Saturday, February 21 at 2pm. Tickets are on sale now at trincoll.edu/austin-arts-center/, or HartBeat-Ensemble.org or at the door (subject to availability).

This production has been made possible in part with support from J. Walton Bissell Foundation; Department of Economic and Community Development, CT Office of the Arts; Greater Hartford Gives Foundation; and Travelers.

About the Cast and Creatives

James Alton (he/his) (James Baldwin) is a graduate of University North Carolina School of the Arts (Drama), originally from Hickory, North Carolina, now based in Brooklyn, NY. James appeared in the Syracuse Stage premiere of Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country in August 2024.

Kyle Bass, Resident Playwright at Syracuse Stage, is a playwright, screenwriter, and librettist whose works include The Floydians (Keen Company, Off-Broadway), Toliver & Wakeman (Franklin Stage Company, Colgate University Theater), Tender Rain (Syracuse Stage), Salt City Blues(Syracuse Stage), Possessing Harriet (Syracuse Stage, Franklin Stage Company, East Lynne Theater Company, HartBeat Ensemble, published by Theatrical Rights Worldwide), and Citizen James, or The Young Man Without a Country(Syracuse Stage, HartBeat Ensemble). Under commission from the Washington National Opera, Kyle has written new scenes and lyrics for a new production of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, which will premiere in March. New plays include The Civilities, which was commissioned by Franklin Stage Company and will premiere there this summer, and The Black Nationals, commissioned by Syracuse Stage and will premiere there in 2027. In collaboration with National Medal of Arts recipient Ping Chong, he co-authored Cry for Peace: Voices from the Congo(Syracuse Stage, La MaMa). Kyle also co-authored the screenplay for the feature film Day of Days, starring Tom Skerritt, and served as screenwriter and executive producer for the forthcoming short film Northeast. A three-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship (in fiction, playwriting, and screenwriting), Kyle is Associate Professor of Theater at Colgate University, where he teaches playwriting, screenwriting, and contemporary African American dramatic literatures. A descendant of individuals once enslaved in colonial New England and the American South, Kyle resides and writes in upstate New York, where his family has lived freely and owned land for 227 years. Visit kylebassplaywright.com.

Joann Maria Yarrow is a director and producer who specializes in story development across several platforms and serves as the director of community engagement at Syracuse Stage. She was artistic director of Teatro Prometeo in Miami, FL, where she directed and produced over 80 productions in Spanish, and translated, adapted, and commissioned new works that have toured nationally and internationally in multilingual communities. Joann co-founded A Laboratory for Actor Training with Vernice Miller inspired by their collaborations with Double Edge Theatre, Richard Schechner’s East Coast Artists, Odin Teatret in Denmark and ISTA, the International School of Theatre Anthropology. She worked for Broadway director Hal Prince on the productions of Parade, Whistle Down the Wind, Candide, Show Boat, Kiss of the Spiderwoman and The Phantom of the Opera. At Syracuse Stage she directed the Backstory productions of Commanding Space by Stephanie Leary, Citizen James by Kyle Bass and Our Words Are Seeds by Ty Defoe. She curates community dialogues, addressing topic that surface from Syracuse Stage’s productions and community projects. She is a featured director in the books: The Art and Practice of Directing in Latin America: Central America and United States; Latinx Actor Training; Inside the Performance Workshop: A sourcebook for Rasaboxes; and A History of Latinx Performing Arts in the U.S. (Routledge 2023). She is passionate about fostering multicultural and multi-disciplinary productions that challenge and shift our thoughts, actions, and perspectives. joannyarrow.co

About HartBeat Ensemble:

HartBeat Ensemble creates provocative theater that connects the people and communities of Greater Hartford across traditional barriers of race, gender, class and geography. HartBeat Ensemble is one of the few arts institutions in Greater Hartford using theater and storytelling to build the Beloved Community. As an ensemble of Citizen Artists, we create and present innovative theatrical experiences based on critical civic issues that directly affect our constituents in their neighborhoods, their jobs, their schools and their institutions. HartBeat not only offers audiences the opportunity to witness world-class theater, but through storytelling and facilitation we engage them in telling their own stories in a variety of settings. At the same time, HartBeat is preparing the next generation of Citizen Artists and Civic Leaders through our Youth Play Institute. To learn more, please visit HartBeat-Ensemble.org.