CLEVELAND, OHIO: Dobama Theatre has announced alternative programming for its 2020-21 season, including in the areas of performance, new play development, and engagement.
“The 2020-21 season will be a year of intermission, transition, and transformation,” said artistic director Nathan Motta in a statement. “We are thrilled to reveal our plans for a year of exciting alternative artistic programming, investment in new-play development, and engagement with our shared community. We also look forward to sharing bold anti-racism and anti-bias action plans in the coming months as we hold ourselves accountable to the vital work of dismantling harmful, antiquated theatre practices and creating a welcoming, equitable, and safe artmaking organization. Dobama Theatre will emerge from this moment stronger, focused, more equitable, and with renewed purpose.”
In the area of performance, Dobama Theatre will offer the Soliloquy Project. Beginning this fall and continuing over the course of the season, Dobama Theatre will release professionally produced short films highlighting memorable monologues from past Dobama productions and notable contemporary playwrights.
The company will also sponsor a virtual Immersive Theatre Festival (Oct. 15-25), featuring performances from companies around the world.
Dobama Theatre will also offer the filmed production of How to Be a Respectable Junkie (March 2021), by Greg Vovos. The play, developed at Dobama before its world premiere run in 2017, is based on the true accounts of a recovered heroin addict from Northeast Ohio.
In the new play development area, Dobama has announced that the company will be developing What We Look Like, a new play from B.J. Tindal, about a Black family that moves to a suburban white neighborhood. After being developed over the next year, What We Look Like will receive its first professional performance during a future season.
The theatre has also announced that it will be commissioning a yet to be announced new play. Additionally, Dobama will give a behind the scenes look at the upcoming world premiere musical The Land of Oz, with book and lyrics by George Brant and music by Nathan Motta, including a virtual reading and song excerpts.
In the area of engagement, Dobama’s 2020-21 season will offer a weekly profile of theatre professionals in the Cleveland area in Artists of the Land and periodic Quarantine Q&A events with Dobama artists, masterclasses from Motta, and member happy hours.
Dobama Theatre, founded in 1959, strives to educate theatre artists and premiere the top contemporary pieces.
