On Juneteenth, a Landmark Play Comes to a Landmark Building: Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem will be performed at the former St. Mark’s Church in Warren, RI
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Catherine Zipf, (401) 253-7223, director@bhpsri.org
The Bristol Historical & Preservation Society
48 Court St., Bristol, RI
Event details
Date: Friday, June 19, 2026
Schedule: Open house 5:00 pm · Performance 6:00 pm · Discussion to follow
Location: 21 Lyndon Street, Warren, RI (former St. Mark’s Episcopal Church)
Admission: Free and open to all · Register via Eventbrite
Co-presented by: The Bristol Historical and Preservation Society · Gail Burton · Hadley & Peter Arnold
Supported in part by: Stages of Freedom · African-American Museum of RI
A free public reading of Gail Burton’s Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem — illuminating the lives of four Black female freedom fighters — will take place on June 19th in a newly restored former church, one block from a waterfront that once launched Rhode Island’s slaving ships.
The Bristol Historical & Preservation Society, Gail Burton, and Hadley + Peter Arnold announce a free public event on Juneteenth, Friday, June 19th, 2026, and reading of Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem, written by playwright Gail Burton. The evening takes place at 21 Lyndon Street, Warren, RI — the newly restored former St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, home of the 1877 Warren Black Gospel Window.
The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 5:00 pm. The reading begins at 6:00 pm, followed by a discussion with the playwright and collaborators. Registration is available via Eventbrite.
About the play
Truth: A Biofictional Choreopoem is a vibrant work blending spoken word, storytelling, and movement to illuminate the lives of four Black female freedom fighters: Sojourner Truth, Harriet Bell Hayden, Harriet Tubman, and Louisa DeWolfe. Through their stories, we encounter ancestors who are not confined to the past but alive in our present and still moving through us to direct our future.
The work was created by playwright Gail Burton, a Harvard-trained weaver of myth, memory, and liberation, recipient of the Cambridge Peace Award, and author of Muses, and directed by Kym Moore, an award-winning director, founder of Antigravity Performance Project, and Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at Brown University. Truth has been workshopped at Boston’s Cultural Equity Incubator, MASARY Studios at Midway Artist Studios, and La MaMa in New York.
“These women did not wait for permission to be free. They imagined a world that did not yet exist and then built it — with their bodies, their voices, their refusal to be erased. Truth is my attempt to honor that. I want audiences to leave not just knowing their names, but feeling their presence.”
— Gail Burton, playwright
About the venue
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, designed by prominent Rhode Island architect Russell Warren, opened in 1830 at 21 Lyndon Street, one block from Warren’s working waterfront.
That waterfront carries a profound and difficult history. According to the Warren Middle Passage Project, between 1789 and 1807 eight vessels launched from this shore transported at least 608 West African captives to Havana and Charleston. Warren’s shipyards built more than a third of Rhode Island’s slaving vessels, and its merchants financed and outfitted voyages that tied the town to the wider Atlantic economy connecting New England, the Caribbean, and West Africa.
The St. Mark’s parish installed the Black Gospel Window— the first known representation of Christ and Gospel Women as people of color in American stained glass—in 1877. The window stood as a quiet counter-narrative one block from a waterfront that had, for a century, profited from the trade in Black lives.
The parish closed in 2010. New owners Peter and Hadley Arnold have undertaken a comprehensive restoration and environmentally sensitive adaptation of the building as home and gathering space. Truth will be the first public gathering in this newly commissioned space.
Note to editors: The 1877 Black Gospel Window has traveled to Memphis, Tennessee for restoration and permanent exhibition at the Memphis Museum of Art, opening in late 2026.
“When we took on the restoration of St. Mark’s, we knew we were taking on a responsibility — to the building, to its history, and to this community. Hosting Truth as our first public gathering feels exactly right. This space has always held difficult histories and acts of witness side by side. We want it to continue to do that.”
— Hadley Arnold, co-host
About Juneteenth
On June 19, 1865, Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas with news that more than 250,000 enslaved Black people in the state were free, nearly two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation had taken effect. The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture recognizes Juneteenth as the nation’s second independence day, first celebrated in family- and church-centered gatherings and recognized as a federal holiday in 2021.
“The Bristol Historical and Preservation Society exists to bring history into living conversation with the present. Juneteenth is exactly that kind of occasion, and Warren’s own history makes this gathering especially meaningful. We are proud to co-present this event and to deepen our community’s understanding of the ground we stand on.”
— Catherine Zipf, Executive Director, Bristol Historical and Preservation Society
About the Bristol Historical & Preservation Society
The Bristol Historical & Preservation Society seeks to stimulate interest in the history of Bristol, Rhode Island, through education, research, and the collection and preservation of historic objects. Bristol has a rich and vibrant history and one of our goals is to explore this history in as many ways as possible. Keep an eye on our website for even more events to come!
MEDIA CONTACTS
Bristol Historical and Preservation Society
Catherine Zipf, Executive Director · Chelsea Johnston, Program Coordinator