American Theater Group to present WE ARE Concert presentation on November 2nd

Published by New Jersey Stage
originally published: 10/20/2026

(UNION, NJ) -- American Theater Group (ATG), led by Producing Artistic Director Charlotte Cohn, will present a one-night concert event of WE ARE -- a contemporary musical feature about identity, family, love, and America's complicated Civil Rights legacy — on Monday, November 2, 2026 at the DMK Black Box Theater in Union. The concert will feature Tony Award-winner Lillias White (Hadestown, The Life, Fela!) as well as Tony Award-nominee Christiani Pitts (Two Strangers Carry a Cake Across New York). Showtime is 7:30pm.

WE ARE is told through poetry, humor, and music styles ranging from hip hop, rap, R&B and gospel. This event will bring together an exceptional company of Broadway, film, and television artists and will be hosted by New Jersey writer, producer and director Timothy Ware-Hill. Additional members of the 15-person cast and three-piece orchestra.

Tickets are $39.19 and are available for purchase online. The DMK Theater is located within the Union Arts Center located at 1980 Morris Avenue in Union, New Jersey.

Produced by Ware-Hill, Anant Das and Jonathan Unger of Unger Media, WE ARE is an award-winning screenplay recognized by the CineStory Foundation, where it received First Place and a CineStory Fellowship. The project also shares its creative DNA with Ware-Hill’s Peabody Award-winning Netflix short Cops and Robbers, which grew from material originally conceived for the WE ARE screenplay. WE ARE centers on a community of poets who use language, music, humor, and memory to confront the unfinished work of America’s Civil Rights legacy. Through their relationships and creative expression, the film explores how history lives inside families and communities—and how art can become a way to reckon with that history.

“We are thrilled to partner with Timothy and his creative team on this ground-breaking project and are pleased to be able to provide a welcoming, creative space where this work can be seen by an audience of our local community, industry leaders, producers, and creative collaborators,” noted Charlotte Cohn.

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“This concert is an important step in the continued development of WE ARE as a feature film. It will allow us to hear the screenplay and music with an extraordinary cast and showcase the material as we move toward production. Our hope is that this event allows us to continue assembling the partnerships necessary to produce WE ARE as an independent feature film and position it for major festival consideration and distribution,” noted Ware-Hill.

The WE ARE Creative and producing team is comprised of:

TIMOTHY WARE-HILL — Writer/ Director/ Executive Producer is a Peabody Award-winning writer and director and a 2022 Academy Nicholl Fellow, awarded through the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He was also selected for the Sundance Screenwriters Intensive for Tyrone and the Looking Glass. His screenplay WE ARE received First Place and a Fellowship from the CineStory Foundation. His Netflix short Cops and Robbers received a Peabody Award and additional industry recognition, while his work on Disney’s Rise Up, Sing Out! earned NAACP Image Award and Annie Award nominations. As a performer, his career spans Broadway, national tours, regional theatre, film, and television. He recently starred in ATG’s productions of Purlie (winner of 4 Audelco Awards) and Our Town, is a native of Mobile, AL and a graduate of Alabama State University.

JONATHAN UNGER – Executive Producer is the CEO of Unger Media, a company dedicated to creating content with a purpose, bridging imagination with impact in every story told. Unger Media amplifies voices that need to be heard through partners such as MACRO, Film Independent, Gabrielle Union's I'll Have Another Productions, and others. His and Unger Media’s commitment to community initiatives is reflected in active leadership and advisory roles with organizations such as the Hollywood Climate Summit, Entertainment Community Fund, Blood Cancer United, and Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively's Group Effort Initiative. Repped by Lastine Law.

ANANT DAS — Executive Producer is the CEO of Broadway Boxed Up, a two-time Drama Desk Award winner and three-time Tony Award nominee. His producing credits include Smash, Gypsy starring Audra McDonald, The Wiz, A Beautiful Noise, Here Lies Love, How to Dance in Ohio, The Piano Lesson, and New York, New York, with film credits including Prime and Summoning the Spirit.

PAUL JERRY COMPERE -- Music Director & Orchestrator brings over 25 years of performance and production experience. At the age of 14, he won first place in the European International Piano Competition, where he competed against 384 other pianists. He is an alumnus of Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ, music education with a principal study in piano performance/pedagogy. Compere has served as a professor’s assistant to Richard Alston at the Juilliard School of Music in New York City for the Gifted Young and Undergraduate Students’ Program. Mr Compere is also a film composer of the Peabody award winning film Cops and Robbers currently on the Netflix streaming platform. He has also played for many artists such as Lauren Hill, Wyclef Jean, Wayman Tisdale, Ginuwine, Tye Tribbett, musical director for “Bradd Marquis Sings Sam Cooke” and many more. Jerry is the proud owner and CEO of JC music School in Trenton NJ for the past 13 years. He is a music consultant and professional development coach for middle school and elementary school music teachers as well as various churches in Mercer County in New Jersey. Proud Father of two, Isaiah and Pneuma and husband to the beautiful Broadway lead actor Carrie Compere.

RICKEY MINOR — Music Consultant is a two-time Emmy Award winner with fifteen nominations, music director, producer, and composer whose celebrated career spans television, film, recordings, and live performance. He served as music director and conductor for the Academy Awards, in addition to leading music for major television broadcasts and working with some of the most recognized artists and entertainment properties in the world. He brings decades of musical leadership and creative expertise to WE ARE.

ANDREW ROBERTS — Visual Effects Consultant is an Academy Award-nominated and two-time Emmy Award-winning Visual Effects Supervisor with nearly three decades of experience. His credits include Jurassic World: Rebirth, The Creator, Rez Ball, and Cops and Robbers. He also serves as a Governor in the Visual Effects Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

WE ARE is fiscally sponsored by Broader Than Broadway Programs, Inc, a 501c3 non-profit organization with the belief that performing arts is for everyone.

The WE ARE concert cast principals:

Lillias White appeared most recently in the world premiere of Douglass Lyons' play Mother Daughter Father Son at the Adirondack Theatre Festival. She made her Broadway debut in Barnum. Other Broadway credits include Hadestown, Cats, Carrie, Dreamgirls, Once On This Island, How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, Chicago, and Fela! (Tony nomination). For her role in The Life, she won Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle Awards. Off-Broadway, White performed in the New Group’s Black No More, the Public Theater’s Romance In Hard Times (Obie Award), Dinah Was at the Gramercy Theatre, Second Stage Theatre’s Crowns (Audelco Award) and Texas In Paris at the York Theatre Company. Concert performances include the critically acclaimed cabaret show at 54 Below called The Lillias White Effect, Funny Girl, Hair, Dreamgirls, And South Pacific, which was broadcast by PBS Great Performances. She also has appeared in concert at the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, and Lincoln Center and has toured internationally with her one-woman show, From Booklyn To Broadway. She continues her residency at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. Television appearances include a regular role on “Sesame Street” (Emmy Award); recurring roles on FX's "Grotesquerie", Netflix’s “The Get Down” and “Russian Doll”; and guest star appearances on “New Amsterdam,” “Search Party,” “Gotham,” “Person of Interest,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Law & Order,” and “NYPD Blue.” Her screen credits include Heartworm, The Drummer, Disney’s Hercules, Anastasia, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, Game 6, Pieces Of April and Then She Found Me. Lillias holds an honorary Ph.D. in Fine Arts from the City University of New York.

Christiani Pitts is a Tony nominated actress and singer-songwriter from Atlanta, GA. She is currently starring on Broadway as Robin Rainey in Two Strangers, Carry A Cake Across New York. Previous Broadway credits include Ann Darrow in King Kong, and Jane in A Bronx Tale. She currently plays the role of Pernessa Reed on STARZ’s Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and stars as Beverly Stratford in the film Resort To Love on Netflix. Other TV credits include The Good Fight, Dead Ringers, Blue Bloods, Evil and Elementary. She lends her voice to the character Rosalie on Apple TV’s Rolling With Otis. Christiani holds a BFA from The Florida State University and proudly serves as a board member on the Living Live Foundation.

The Union Arts Center is located within the new, state-of-the-art Public Library at 1980 Morris Avenue in Union. The Arts Center includes the DMK Black Box Theater, the Union Art Gallery curated by Les Malamut, Union TV studios, classrooms, and The Center Café. The Center is easily accessible by public transportation and is within 40 minutes from NYC’s Port Authority (NJ Transit Bus #114) and New York’s Penn Station. Please visit https://www.uniontownship.com for more information.

American Theater Group (ATG), founded in 2012, produces entertaining, thought-provoking theater. It champions new work, create memorable experiences and strengthen communities through storytelling. It also provides quality arts-in-education initiatives, including its New Works/New Voices playwriting program for high school students and its PlayLab program for BIPOC and queer playwrights.