Inspired by the Harlem Rent Parties of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s MOFAD invites you to a virtual evening of stories, history, performance, music, and - of course - food and drink!
Thursday, June 25
7:20 PM - 7:50 PM EST Pre-Show Cooking Demo*
8:00 PM - 9:00 PM EST Rent Party Program
Dress to impress as though you were attending a 1920s, 1930s, or 1940s Harlem Rent Party and wear your dancing shoes because there will be music and celebration. Our producers will feature the best outfits on the screen throughout the program!
Broadway and West End star Marisha Wallace will transport us to the era with songs popularized by Billie Holiday and Fats Waller -- both of whom began their careers performing in Harlem and are two of the most celebrated voices in American jazz.
Culinary historian Dr. Jessica B. Harris will share the history of Harlem Rent Parties, a tradition of open house socializing and dancing born out of the need to mitigate inflated rents for Black folks in Harlem beginning in the early 1920s.
And we can’t forget the food and drink! Scholar and mixologist Tonya Hopkins has crafted a specialty Harlem Rent Party Red ‘Drank’ inspired by the era. Chef Omar Tate of Honeysuckle, a dinner pop-up series dedicated to exploring Black heritage and culture through food, has created a custom 3-course menu for the evening:
1st Course: Cabbage Salad with Buttermilk Dressing
2nd Course: Fried Fish and Grits
3rd Course: Gingerbread Cake
We encourage you to prepare Chef Omar’s menu and Tonya’s cocktail at home! Recipes will be provided upon purchase of your ticket.
Want to see how Tonya and Chef Omar do it themselves? Purchase the Pre-Show Add-on live cooking demo option!
TICKET PACKAGES:
GENERAL ADMISSION TICKET $25
Reserved ticket, aka your unique access link
Recipes for Chef Omar’s menu and for Tonya’s cocktail
* PRE-SHOW ADD-ON $15
Live cooking demo with Chef Omar Tate and Tonya Hopkins from 7:20-7:50pm EST!
Chef Omar Tate will demonstrate how to prepare the 3 courses in his menu and Tonya Hopkins will demonstrate her signature cocktail, “Harlem’s Glory”
JESSICA B. HARRIS
Educator and culinary historian Jessica Harris is the author of fifteen books documenting the foods and foodways of the African Diaspora including High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America. She has written extensively about the culture of Africa in the Americas, lectured widely, and made numerous television appearances.
Jessica holds a Ph.D. from NYU and is an English professor at Queens College, CUNY. She consults at Dillard University in New Orleans, where she founded the Institute for the Study of Culinary Cultures. Harris is a founding member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, and a member of the IACP and Les Dames d’Escoffier. In 2004, Harris was awarded the Jack Daniel’s Lifetime Achievement Award and most recently she was awarded the James Beard Foundation 2020 Lifetime Achievement Winner and Humanitarian of the Year. To learn more about Jessica, go to www.africooks.com.
TONYA HOPKINS
Tonya Hopkins is a food and drink scholar/historian/storyteller and mixology maven. As a writer, Hopkins contributed several entries on wine and spirits related topics while serving as past President of the NYC Chapter of the wine education organization, Women for WineSense. As a public educator, she’s created numerous wine and spirits educational programs and guided tastings for cultural organizations in New York City.
As the great-granddaughter of a Prohibition Era speakeasy entrepreneur/professional cook, she proudly carries on tradition as a legacy cook and concoctionist by creating culturally-rooted, historically informed beverages and conducts food and wine pairings at live or recorded/broadcast events via her storytelling platform, The Food Griot LLC, with a focus on discovering and sharing more inclusive and nearly lost food and drink history narratives of The Americas.
In 2019 Tonya created an American food & drink history for all (from a Black Perspective) PODCAST hosted by The Philadelphia Citizen’s “Foodizen” program.
OMAR TATE
Chef Omar Tate has spent the last ten years in the restaurant industry working in some of the best restaurants in New York City and Philadelphia including A Voce, Fork, Meadowsweet, Runner and Stone , and Russet.
He finds the intersection of science, art, craft, and the physicality of line cooking to be unique and the most alluring aspects of the profession.
Chef Omar has been exploring his heritage to bring balance and equity to his profession. He has researched and produced dinners dedicated to honoring chefs, writers, and figures in history representative of African American culture. He is now the mind behind Honeysuckle, a dinner pop up series dedicated to exploring black heritage and culture through food. He uses history and various forms of art to tell the nuanced stories of black folks with his guests.
MARISHA WALLACE
From glittering New York, the sensational star Marisha Wallace has taken her immense talent around the world! On Broadway, Marisha has starred in shows such as Disney's Aladdin, The Book of Mormon and Something Rotten. Across the pond, Marisha has showcased her talent in West End hits as Effie in Dreamgirls, Becky in Waitress and in April 2020 will take the role of Motormouth in Hairspray alongside Michael Ball at the London Coliseum.
Marisha graces the silver screen in the new live action version of Disney’s Aladdin, and you will have seen her as a featured vocalist on Strictly Come Dancing and This Morning too.
Together with her theatre success, Marisha Wallace has taken on the mainstream music world, performing with such revered international artists as Seal, James Blunt and Gregory Porter. Last year, Marisha delivered a stunning set at Love Supreme Festival, was the special guest to Todrick Hall on his sold out shows in the UK and Amsterdam and a special guest to Katherine Jenkins at her Christmas show at the Royal Albert Hall in London. Please follow her @marishawallace and visit marishawallace.com for more info.