News Releases

NJCU Program Exploring Challenges of Multi-Racial Americans to Feature Performance, Panel Discussion on November 12

“MIXED,” a two-part New Jersey City University program centered on the one-woman show of the same title by Maya Lilly, will feature an afternoon performance of the work and an evening panel discussion on issues confronted by the piece on Thursday, November 12.

The play, “MIXED,” will be performed by Christina Moses at 12:00 p.m. in NJCU’s Margaret Williams Theatre of Hepburn Hall. The student panel discussion, which will be moderated by Manijeh Nasrabadi, will be held at 7:00 p.m., in Room 129 of the Michael Gilligan Student Union. The discussion will explore being multi-racial/multi-ethnic and what that means in America today. The University is located at 2039 Kennedy Boulevard in Jersey City. Admission to both programs is free and open to the community.

A one-person show adapted entirely from interviews and workshops conducted throughout the United States, “MIXED” has been described as the first true portrayal of multi-racial Americans.

“MIXED” covers the stories of eight multi-racial characters, ranging from April, a black/white girl raised in a small town who, until college, believes she is white, to Ahmed, an Arab/black man who struggles with hate crimes in a post 9/11 world.

Both programs are hosted by the NJCU Office of the Dean of Students and the University’s Student Opportunity Seminars (SOS) Committee.

For further information call Wonda Shipman. NJCU associate dean of student development and campus life, at (201)200- 3585.

Maya Lilly
Born in New York City, Ms. Lilly began her formal training in the arts at School for Creative and Performing Arts in Cincinnati at the age of nine. By the time she was in high school, she had completed many modeling assignments and voiceovers, and had performed in more than 30 school productions, in a show at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, and in numerous commercials.

In 1995, Ms. Lilly’s family relocated to Miami, where she majored in musical theatre at New World School of the Arts. After graduating from New World, Ms. Lilly was one of seven women in a class of 20 accepted into The Juilliard School's acting program. It was at Juilliard that Ms. Lilly began her work as an activist for the environment and social and racial justice.

It was also while at Juilliard that Ms. Lilly began to write poetry and one-woman performance pieces. In 2000, she won a slam poetry contest at Nuyorican Poets Café and was a finalist in the International Poetry Competition sponsored by Eternal Portraits Co. She was also awarded a Udall Congressional Award for her work using theatre as social activism.

Ms. Lilly, who moved to Hollywood in 2003, is one of the producers of the Elevate Film Festival at the Kodak and Nokis theatres in Los Angeles.

Christina Moses
Ms. Moses has performed on stage in Los Angeles and New York and has toured with Rainbow Theatre. Her off-Broadway credits include starring roles in the original plays, “Walter, Bullets, and Binoculars” and “Saydee and Deelores,” both premiered at Chelsea Playhouse during the “Black, Brown, High Yellow Theatre Festival.”

Ms. Moses starred opposite George Takai in the Hugo-nominated “Star Trek: New Voyages” episode, “World Enough and Time,” and in the independent horror feature “Machete Joe.”

She is currently partnering with VOICES for Umoja, a nonprofit organization based in Kisumu, Kenya and Los Angeles that uses media for social change.

Manijeh Nasrabadi
Ms. Nasrabadi, co-director of the Association of Iranian American Writers, is currently writing a memoir about her Iranian and Jewish families in America and in Iran. The first chapter of her memoir, “A Far Corner of the Revolution,” will be published in the next issue of Callaloo.

“Souvenir,” Ms. Nasrabadi’s essay about the challenges of seeing her mixed-heritage clearly, was published in About Face and last April, her article on second-generation Iranian-American writers was published in Hyphen Magazine.

Currently a doctoral student in American studies at New York University, Ms. Nasrabadi holds an M.F.A. in creative nonfiction from Hunter College, where she also taught creative writing workshops for several years, and a B.A. in English and American literature from Brown University.

A resident of Jackson, Queens, Ms. Nasrabadi travels annually to Iran.

News releases by Ellen Wayman-Gordon, and Kelly Resch, Office of Public Information.