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Ifa Bayeza, Dustin Tahmahkera, Michi Barall, and members of Latino Theater Company (Goeffrey Rivas, Lucy Rodriguez, Sal Lopez, Evelina Fernandez; picture by Ed Krieger)
MINNEAPOLIS-ST. PAUL, LOS ANGELES, NEW YORK CITY: The 5 theatres that comprise the Generation Now partnership—Latino Theater Company, Ma-Yi Theater Company, Native Voices on the Autry, Penumbra Theatre, and Children’s Theatre Company—have awarded their first spherical of commissions to 4 tasks. These embrace One Small Alice by Ifa Bayeza; Drawing Lessons by Michi Barall; Comanche Girl on the Moon by Dustin Tahmahkera; and a piece exploring the world of folklórico dance by the Latino Theater Company.
“We are thrilled to partner with these leaders and their extraordinary organizations to develop new ways of creating works for multigenerational audiences,” Peter Brosius, inventive director of Children’s Theatre Company, mentioned in an announcement. “We are eager to work together to support these remarkable artists in their journey to bring new stories, new perspectives, and new aesthetics to the field.”
Generation Now brings collectively 5 theatres throughout the nation to fee and develop new works for multigenerational audiences by each established and rising BIPOC artists. All commissions will obtain not less than two developmental workshops on the co-commissioning theatres. The purpose of the partnership is to develop the canon of labor produced and to create a mannequin of transformative partnership for the theatre area.
Bayeza’s One Small Alice was co-commissioned by Penumbra and Children’s Theatre Company. The play transposes Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass into the journey of a 9 yr outdated woman on the Underground Railroad.
Bayeza is a playwright, director, novelist, and educator. She is thought for the Till Trilogy, which incorporates the performs The Ballad of Emmett Till, That Summer in Sumner, and Benevolence. She can be the co-author of the novel Some Sing, Some Cry with the late Ntozake Shange. A finalist for the Herb Alpert Award and the Francesca Primus Prize in 2020, Bayeza was the inaugural humanist in residence on the National Endowment for the Humanities. Bayeza is the recipient of two concurrent commissions from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and is a 2022 MacDowell fellow. A graduate of Harvard University, Bayeza acquired her MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Barall’s Drawing Lessons was co-commissioned by Ma-Yi and Children’s Theatre Company. The play follows Kate, a woman who has simply began center college and might’t appear to speak to anybody, however can talk with Paul, a comic book strip artist at a newspaper. The play can be accessible for licensing with Plays for New Audiences post-production.
Barall is a New York-based actor, playwright, and educational. Her dance-theatre piece Rescue Me was produced on the Ohio Theatre by Ma-Yi in 2010. In 2017, her music theatre adaptation of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Peer Gynt and the Norwegian Hapa Band, at ART/New York. Barall holds an MFA from New York University and PhD in Theatre and English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and is a college member at Purchase College.
Tahmahkera’s Comanche Girl on the Moon was co-commissioned by Native Voices on the Autry and Children’s Theatre Company. The play follows an imaginative however insecure Comanche woman, Petu, who discovers her late grandmother’s rocket ship in Oklahoma. It can be accessible for licensing with Plays for New Audiences post-production.
Tahmahkera is a Comanche playwright and professor of Native media and sound research on the University of Oklahoma. His quick play 9-1-1 Comanchería acquired finest play and viewers favourite awards at Native Voices on the Autry’s current Los Angeles play pageant, and is a part of a collection of authentic quick performs in his e book, Comanche vs. the World. Tahmahkera’s earlier books embrace Tribal Television: Viewing Native Peoples in Sitcoms from the University of North Carolina Press and Cinematic Comanches: The Lone Ranger within the Media Borderlands from the University of Nebraska Press.
Latino Theater Company’s untitled folklórico play, which was co-commissioned by the corporate and by Children’s Theatre Company, is a journey into the world of Mexican folklórico dance by means of the lens of younger folks confronting their roots, id, and reality.
Generation Now acquired funding from the Mellon Foundation in 2021 to co-commission and co-develop 16 new performs by each established and rising BIPOC artists for multigenerational audiences over 5 years.