About this Performance

Writer, Performer, and Tony-Nominated Director Whitney White arrives on Little Island for a free, public showing of her new and original song cycle The Case of the Stranger. 

With a score rooted in soul, jazz, R&B, and diverse geographical soundworlds, The Case of the Stranger takes its title from a passage in Shakespeare’s Sir Thomas Moore — one of the earliest known pleas for a compassionate refugee policy. The piece explores themes of identity, migration, and the power of unexpected kinship.

Created by Whitney White, in-partnership with Maxim Pozdorovkin with music direction by Ben Covello, this song cycle brings White’s signature style to the forefront, emphasizing the raw power of voice and sound in an intimate, deeply resonant experience.

Written by: Whitney White
Co-Directed by: Whitney White and Maxim Pozdorovkin
Music Direction by: Ben Covello

Creative Credits

Whitney White

Writer & Co-Director

Whitney White is an Obie and Lilly Award winning director, actor, and musician based in Brooklyn, New York. She is a Tony Award nominee, a recipient of the Susan Stroman Directing award, an Artistic Associate at the Roundabout and part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. Her original musical Definition was part of the 2019 Sundance Theatre Lab, and her four-part musical exploration of Shakespeare’s Women and ambition is currently under commission with the Royal Shakespeare Company (UK). She has developed work with: Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public Theatre, Ars Nova, The Drama League, Roundabout, New York Theatre Workshop, The Lark, The Movement, Jack, Bard College, NYU Tisch, Juilliard, Princeton, SUNY Purchase, South Oxford, Luna Stage and more. Whitney was a staff writer on Boots Riley’s I’M A VIRGO (Amazon, Media Res). Whitney is a believer in collaborative processes and new forms. Her musical discipline is rooted in indie-soul, and rock. She is passionate about black stories, reconstructing classics, stories for and about women, genre-defying multimedia work and film. Past fellowships include: New York Theatre Workshop 2050 Fellowship, Ars Nova’s Makers Lab, Colt Coeur and the Drama League. MFA Acting: Brown University/Trinity Rep, BA Political Science, Certificate in Musical Theatre: Northwestern University.

Maxim Pozdorovkin

Co-Director

Bio to come.

Ben Covello

Music

Bio to come.