(PATERSON, NJ) -- The Paterson Performing Arts Development Council (PPADC) is back and delighted to announce its 2025 Annual Hamilton Arts Festival (HAF). Now in its fifth season, the festival runs from August 7 – 23, 2025, and features a series of events designed to promote and showcase the works of underrepresented and underserved artists from theater, film, and other disciplines.

The HAF Short Film Showcase kicks off the festival on Thursday, August 7th, in the Charles J. Muth Museum of Hinchcliffe Stadium (186 Maple Street) in Paterson, featuring nine films from independent artists.

The festival lineup continues with the HAF Playwright’s Reading and Talkback Series, on Saturday, August 9th, at the Great Falls Center (39 McBride Ave. Ext.) in Paterson. The event will feature a staged reading of Covenant Farm by Brigid Amos, the 2nd place winner of the HAF Playwriting Competition.

Also, part of the festival lineup is the HAF Artist Showcase, Tuesday, August 12th, featuring spoken word performances, monologues, and 10-minute plays by local artists competing for cash prizes.

A virtual HAF Art Gallery on August 18th will showcase works from Paterson students participating in New Destiny’s Family Success Center’s Restorative and Transformative Justice Program. The art is being curated by instructor, artist, and PPADC collaborator, Joel “YOBE” Belaño.

The festival will close with back-to-back production days of the HAF Playwriting Competition’s 1st Place Winning Play 3000 Days of Abandonment by playwright Joseph Classen, on August 22nd & 23rd at the Great Falls Center.

“Our mission is deeply committed to building relationships and laying groundwork for the next big thing for our artistic community, so this year is particularly thrilling for us since both of our wonderful playwrights are NJ residents,” says Denise Womack, PPADC Board President. “Joseph comes in with a unique connection to PPADC as a former winner of our Showcase, and that highlights those efforts. But it is simply that these plays hit the pulse of the moment, in ways we could not have anticipated going into the preparation for this fifth year of HAF. They are powerfully the plays we need to see, the narratives we need to hear, the experiences we need to talk about as we all contextualize our rapidly changing American experience. We are extremely excited.” Womack continued.

HAF Playwriting Competition: First Place Winner - 3000 Days of Abandonment by Joseph Classen. The play is loosely based on the writer's own experiences growing up. It deals with a family dynamic involving a mother who is in prison for drug trafficking and the effect it has on her young son, siblings, and her own mother, as well as issues surrounding immigration, citizenship, and deportation. The story mainly takes place in the Uribe household of NJ, Danbury Federal Penitentiary in CT, and in the Uribe family Car, an old Toyota 4-Runner.

“Participating in the HAF's Playwright Residency marks a major creative breakthrough for me. It’s the moment I stopped being afraid to tell the story that mattered the most to me, my mother's imprisonment, and later deportation. I didn't realize how much this untold story was holding me back creatively and personally,” says PPADC Playwright-in-Residence Joseph Classen.

Joseph is also the first-place winner of the 2024 Hamilton Arts Festival Artist Showcase (by audience and judges' vote). He participated in the poetry/spoken word category. So, he is returning to PPADC and HAF in 2025 as their Playwright-In-Residence.

“Winning the Playwright residency has helped me turn a deeply personal story into a journey of healing for my family, me, and, I hope, for others experiencing generational trauma. The support I’ve received from the PPADC has been transformative, and I can't wait for everyone to experience this story.” Classen said.

HAF Playwriting Competition: Second Place Winner - Covenant Farm by Brigid Amos. The play is loosely based on the writer's own experiences as an apprentice on a biodynamic farm in Comptche, California, in the early 90s. It's about a struggle among three women over the fate of a communal organic farm and addresses the conflict between financial and health security and pursuing a passion, in this case, one that protects the environment and provides healthy food. Women in agriculture and intentional communities are centered, and the farm setting, along with the changes of the season, crops, and farming activities, provides a unique theatrical background to the central conflict of the play.

Tickets for all Hamilton Arts Festival 2025 events can be purchased at https://www.ppadc.org/.

The PPADC is committed to presenting events that are accessible, free or low-cost, diverse, and inclusive of a wide range of artistic voices. Since its inception, PPADC has commissioned the works or talents of over 100 artists across disciplines (e.g., dance, music, theater, film, visual arts, and poetry).

The Paterson Performing Arts Development Council (PPADC) is a 501C3 nonprofit organization based in Paterson, NJ. PPADC devotes its energy and resources to fulfill our mission of bringing together diverse communities via performing arts and cultural events, supporting aspiring and accomplished artists in the development of new works, and promoting the City of Paterson as a destination for arts enthusiasts. PPADC also strives to engage and encourage our city’s artistic youth and foster collaboration with other organizations to provide increased access and opportunities to artists of diverse backgrounds.

PPADC is an Affiliate Member of the New Jersey Theater Alliance, the country's first statewide professional theater service organization representing a consortium of 40 performing arts and theater companies, a member of ArtPride New Jersey, the state's largest arts service and advocacy organization and a grant recipient of the Passaic County Cultural & Heritage Council a partner to the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

The Paterson Performing Arts Development Council (PPADC) continues to cultivate culturally diverse artists who create authentic stories that resonate with local residents. The Hamilton Arts Festival (HAF) is an annual event that is still designed to promote and showcase the works of underrepresented and underserved artists from theater, film, dance, and other disciplines. The purpose of HAF is to raise cultural awareness and offer affordable opportunities for lower-income communities to experience exceptional, diverse artistic works. HAF is also a vehicle to present works by our Playwrights-In-Residence.

PPADC’s Playwright Residency is an incubation whereby playwrights work with a creative team that includes a dramaturg to help with script readiness and a director to help with staged performances (reading, workshop or full production). The Playwright Residency supports emerging writers through a multi-step development process designed to help bring their plays further along and eventually to a state of readiness for full stage production. The Playwright Residency is meant to advance the development of playwrights by providing them resources; to expand the diversity of plays produced on the main stage; and to generate public value through the interaction of playwrights with local arts and civic communities.

Joseph "Comrade" Classen is a playwright, poet, and writer based in Elizabeth, NJ. "3000 Days of Abandonment" marks his professional theater debut, exploring his mother's incarceration and deportation through the lens of family resilience. Of Puerto Rican and Colombian descent, Joseph is a hard-working father of two who believes our deepest wounds can become our greatest weapons when it comes to a Creative Revolution. He lives by the motto, "Forever Onwards."

Brigid Amos is a former soil scientist who writes young adult fiction and plays. Her short stories (adapted from chapters of West from the Cradle) have appeared in The Storyteller, Wilderness House Literary Review, and The MacGuffin. Brigid recently returned to her home state of New Jersey after living in Nebraska for twenty-five years. She is the winner of the 2022 Goshen Peace Play Contest and the 2024 winner of the Tiger's Heart Players Literary Competition.