A piece of Harlem is coming to town this month with the world premiere of playwright Nia Akilah Robinson’s From 145th to 98th Street at Urbanite Theatre May 30-June 29. Not that you need to know much about the New York neighborhood to appreciate Robinson’s play, which centers on the Curtlys, a Black family moving from the historically African American community to the Upper West Side in search of better opportunities for their children. When the son is wrongfully accused of a crime and the daughter decides she would prefer not to attend college, however, the Curtlys must find a new way to come together—or split apart. 

While Robinson herself says she’s always proud to rep Harlem, she feels her new play is relevant to any family, anywhere. “It’s about parents trying to reckon with their kids having grown into the people they are and having to really get to know each other,” she says. “And it’s about hope—wanting to move on to a new chapter and what that chapter looks like for each person. Each member has an image of what their dream future looks like at the beginning, but they’re all misaligned. By the end, they come to an understanding.”

Robinson describes From 145th to 98th Street as mostly a comedy, “but one with some hard moments.” Director Jerrica D. White, who has become friends with Robinson over the past few years, calls it a “living room comedy-drama.”

“This is a family grappling with wanting the best for your kids, and asking what that looks like,” White says. “There are themes any family can relate to.”

Robinson has been having something of a moment lately, with premieres of another recent play, The Great Privation, in London last year and off-Broadway a couple of months ago at Soho Rep. Her work has also been seen and developed with Chicago’s famed Steppenwolf Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre and The Classical Theatre of Harlem, among many others. She’s a playwriting MFA candidate at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale and has won a slew of writing awards and grants.

Urbanite Theatre producing artistic director Summer Dawn Wallace says the world premiere has been gestating for a while. The theater commissioned the work in 2020, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and has been working with Robinson on readings and rewrites ever since.

“It’s a play that really landed with me personally, and we’re thrilled that, with Nia’s busy schedule, we’re able to have the play this season,” Wallace says. “One of the things I love about working on new plays is we get to see it at the beginning of its journey. Sarasota audiences get to be the first to see it, but we want the play to have more life beyond us, as I have no doubt it will.”

Robinson says she hopes that “the laughter comes for Sarasota audiences, and that they see parts of their own families in dialogue with this family working onstage.” She also aims for audiences to “understand how, generationally, everyone is passionate about the greater good and what that looks like, but it continues to vary as the world changes and circumstances impact everyone’s worldview.”

From 145th to 98th Street is the final show of Urbanite Theatre’s 11th season and is onstage May 30-June 29. For more information and to purchase tickets, call (941) 321-1397 or visit urbanitetheatre.com.