Dramaturg
Dramaturgy is the lens in which I approach my artistry. In practice, I support playwrights in the process of self-actualizing their new plays, and innovate what a dramaturgical experiences can be for audiences.
Hype Man
Idris goodwin - Company One
After assistant dramaturging a week long workshop with Idris Goodwin, and some amazing actors where we focused on the rap portions of the piece, we went into an extensive rehearsal process that included a couple of beat making rehearsals with local music producers. I was in charge of updating the production blog during rehearsals with posts speaking to things discussed in the rehearsal room. As tech week approached, Jesse Baxter, the lead dramaturg, and I planned out the lobby experience, drafted and designed the program, and continued to build relationships and collaboration with our community partners. After a vigorous tech week where Jesse and I executed the lobby display experience, finalized the program, and participated in many conversations with the production team where we maintained a dramaturgical focus on all fronts of production, we opened the world premier of Hype Man!
“Company One’s production sizzles with the kind of dynamism that can result — if we’re lucky — when a playwright with a distinctive voice and an urgent message teams up with a theater troupe whose aesthetic and sense of mission are as sharply defined as his.”
Leftovers
josh wilder - Company One
As the lead dramaturg on Leftovers, I worked closely with Summer Williams, the director to run auditions, assist in the casting process, and had tons of strategic conversations around the production with the artistic team and Company One staff. I worked with Josh Wilder, the playwright to make edits during the rehearsal process, and interviewed him around his work and career for the program note. During rehearsals I also updated the production blog speaking to things discussed in the rehearsal room, built and grew relationships with our community partners, designed, and wrote the program note, and project managed and planned the lobby experience. During tech week at the historic Strand Theater, I executed the lobby experience while engaging in conversations with the production team with a dramaturgical focus. Finally, after so much hard work, we opened the world premier of Leftovers!
“Ought to be seen by anyone who cares about the future of American theater.... There is extraordinary value in having a play about a black family by a black playwright playing in a black neighborhood. This is what we need more of, and this is why Company One remains perhaps the most vital theater in our fair city. ”
Our Dad is in Atlantis
Javier malpica - Boston University
While playing one of the actors in this two-hander, I was also the dramaturg for this production. Because the audience was primarily younger, white, affluent art students, I thought it was incredibly important to educate folks around the political, historical, current context in which the play was set. Produced in 2017, just weeks after Trump’s first travel ban and at the height of media coverage around child detention centers, we told a story of two young brothers in Mexico who decide to cross the border alone in search of their father. The education piece manifested as a life sized timeline of immigration policies set up on one wall when audiences entered the performance space, and then a dramaturgy display on the other wall, speaking on themes touched on in the piece, including why the playwright wrote the play, and a large map inviting folks to really visualize what it would be like to travel from Mexico and cross the border.
