Wall of Death
by Harley Elias ‘24 MFA
Directed by JaMario Stills ‘23 MFA

Staged Reading:
2/9 8 PM
2/11 4 PM
2/12 8 PM

Leeds Theatre
83 Waterman Street, Providence RI 02912
click here for tickets 

Step right up and be transfixed by the Wall of Death! Motorcycle riders flying at breakneck speed around and around in front of your eyes. A man singing his way to redemption. Memories creating their own gravity. It all moves together on the Wall. A meditation. A confession. A song cycle. A carnival. Come ride. 

Harley Elias is an Indian-Iraqi-Jewish playwright and performer from New York City, who often writes plays about the strangeness of history, the dismantling of power systems, and revolutions. He has been the recipient of residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts, with Resonance Ensemble, a Fulbright Grant, the Wild Epiphanies New Play Award, two Samuel French OOB Awards, a Young Playwrights Award, the Hester-Franklin Prize, and his Play #3 is published by Samuel French. Recent plays include The Handless King (Wild Epiphanies), Thug Play (Resonance Ensemble), The Pardon (Brown University), and 47 Years of Marriage (Samuel French OOB). With the composer Francisco Finck he wrote the libretto for the opera 11:35, set to premiere in Mexico City in 2023. The documentary he co-wrote and directed, Reconquest of the Useless, was shown at the Havana, Zurich, Woodstock, and Virginia Film Festivals. As an actor his credits include Les Miserables (Broadway and National Tour), A Thousand Clowns (Broadway), A Christmas Carol (Broadway), Ragtime (National Tour). He has worked at the Goodspeed Opera House, EST, Workhouse, Second Stage, HB Studio, Soho Rep, and performed solo at the Kennedy Center. He holds a BA and MA in History and Art History from Stanford and is currently pursuing his MFA in Playwriting at Brown. He is currently under commission from Miami New Drama and Theater J.

JaMario Stills (he/him/his) Is a graduate of The Juilliard School where he received a BFA in Acting and is currently an MFA directing candidate at Brown/Trinity Rep. He is also the 2021 Boris Segal Fellowship recipient at Williamstown Theater festival. As a professional actor, JaMario has performed at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall, The McCarter Theater, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Brooklyn Academy of Music and The Jacksonville Symphony. JaMario founded the Jacksonville based theater company, Phase Eight-in 2017 and serves as its Founding Artistic Director. He has directed a range of plays recognizing time-honored classics and new works by local playwrights while in Jacksonville. Including, MLK Boulevard  by Jacksonville native and Juilliard alumni, Julian Robertson, a multimedia one-woman show On Purpose by acclaimed poet and performer Ebony Payne-English and Women’s Work and Food of Love- two immersive theater pieces developed with prolific Northeast Florida writer, Kelby Siddons for the Museum of Contemporary Art and Cafe Nola. While in attendance at Brown University, JaMario has explored digital adaptations of the works by his favorite writers during the initial breakout of COVID-19. Octavia Butler, Adrienne Kennedy, Moor Mother, Audre Lorde and Gil Scott-Heron, just to name a few. Upon returning to live theater- JaMario and his cohort engaged in a devised adaptation of Shakespeare’s Pericles. Stills has also completed a screenwriting course at RISD (Rhode Island School Design). He intends to continue his studies in filmmaking at RISD while completing his prerequisites for his Master's in theater directing.