Today Ally Theatre Company announced its third season of production with a slate of three shows all of which will play at Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier, Maryland.
“This season at Ally we are creating conversations at the intersection of borders and belonging,” says Ally Theatre Company’s Managing Director, Ivana (Tai) Alexander, exploring what happens when borders, be they physical, structural, psychological, or spiritual, are created in our lives and communities and how they affect our ability to survive and thrive because of and in spite of those barriers.”
The DC Premiere of Naomi Wallace’s The War Boys will run August 9-31 2019. In their spare time three vigilantes, childhood friends, enjoy patrolling the U.S./Mexican border. But these youths soon learn that even the most guarded borders are permeable. When the lines between fantasy and reality become dangerously blurred, these young men are forced to decide what it means to be an American, and who has the right to belong. The War Boys most recently played at The Artist’s Crossing in New York City. Ally’s production will be directed by Matt Ripa.
Dhana and the Rosebuds, an original devised piece, created by documentarian and journalist Federica Cellini will play November 1-23 2019. Dhana and the Rosebuds is an adaptation of the original screenplay, Dhana and the Rosebuds, written by Federica Cellini and Giulia Corda and was created using Ms. Cellini’s journalistic experience which included extensive research and interviews with Syrian women and refugees. Dhana and the Rosebuds follows a young Syrian woman pursuing her science career in NYC as she tries to forget her complicated past. But when she thinks she recognizes her estranged grandmother on a TV news report highlighting Syrian refugees crossing the Macedonia/Serbia border, she decides to go find her. Her international journey results in a spiritual rediscovery of her roots, her identity, and the reason why she left it all behind. Proceeding the production, Ally will host a spring development workshop with professional DC-area actors and members of the local Syrian community to help with the creation of the piece.
Finally, the season concludes with Joel Drake Johnson’s dark comedy Rasheeda Speaking, playing March 6-22 2020. Called “as explicit a postcard from Trump’s Divided America as you could imagine,” by the London Times, Rasheeda Speaking is a tense workplace thriller that examines the realities of so-called “post-racial” America when two co-workers – one black, the other white – are driven apart by the machinations of their boss. Artistic Allies Taunya Ferguson and Jane Petkofsky return to Ally’s stage after starring in 2017’s The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington. Nick DePinto also stars. Ally’s Producing Artistic Director, Ty Hallmark, will direct.
Ally Theatre Company, recently named the 2019 recipient of the John Aniello Outstanding Emerging Theatre Company Award, is committed to producing theatre designed to acknowledge and confront systemic oppression in America. This season also marks their third year of residency at Joe’s Movement Emporium.
Season subscriptions and single tickets for all three productions are available at www.allytheatrecompany.com
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