Huntington Announces Third Wave Of DREAM BOSTON Plays

The Huntington announces the launch of four additional titles to its series of short audio plays by local playwrights entitled Dream Boston. These four plays join the previously released 11 plays that were launched in summer and fall of 2020. The plays are available on The Huntington's website, as well as on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.

Conceived and commissioned by The Huntington's artistic department, the Dream Boston series of plays has given local playwrights the opportunity to imagine specific locations and landmarks in a future Boston, when people can once again meet and thrive in the city. The plays each have 1-3 characters, and vary both in tone, from hopeful to contemplative, provocative, and surprising, and in length, from 6 minutes to 20 minutes. The series has allowed The Huntington to engage both with artists and audiences during the pandemic; the first 11 audio plays have been streamed over 15,000 times.

This third wave of plays includes works by Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire (Ripcord, Good People, Rabbit Hole at The Huntington), Huntington Playwriting Fellows Masha Obolensky and Jacqui Parker, and writer and actor Kadahj Bennett. The settings of this round include Dorchester Heights in South Boston, Wally's Cafe Jazz Club on Massachusetts Avenue in the South End, Nantasket Beach, and the Minuteman Trail in Concord.

"These four plays think about the future from different vantage points than the previous Dream Boston plays," says Charles Haugland, The Huntington's Director of New Work, "amid the vaccine rollout, the return to in-person school, a rapid housing market, and the return to places in our city we haven't been in a long time."

"Each playwrights' work is breathtaking," continues Haugland. "We are grateful to them for sharing their unexpected dreams, civic questions, and radical celebrations with Boston audiences who are also facing the same ever-changing city. Another goal of this wave was to further expand our pool of collaborators in terms of directors, actors, and designers - the series is just beginning to show the depth of talent in the Boston theatre community."

In order to make the recordings of these audio plays, Huntington Sound Engineer Valentin Frank created a package of sterilized recording equipment to be delivered to each actor with explicit instructions on its use and return. Rehearsals and recordings were accomplished online through Zoom, and produced by Huntington artistic staff members Rebecca Bradshaw, Caley Chase, and Rosalind Bevan, under a SAG-AFTRA agreement. Dramaturgy for the project is a collaboration between Melinda Lopez, J. Sebastián Alberdi, Melory Mirashrafi, and Charles Haugland.

NEW DREAM BOSTON PLAYS:

• "Best Day Ever" by Jacqui Parker, directed by Summer L. Williams, featuring actors Lovely Hoffman, Becca A. Lewis, and Ramona Lisa Alexander; Sisters Kenya and Kadesia navigate the 'Karens' of the world as they drive to Nantasket Beach to celebrate their shared birthday on July 28, 2024
  • Available for streaming on April 23, 2021

• "Speaking Up" by Masha Obolensky, directed by Melia Bensussen, featuring actors Stacy Fischer and Adrianne Krstansky with Arthur Gomez; while out for a walk on July 15, 2022, two white women sneak a peek at the construction site of their children's new school
  • Available for streaming on April 28, 2021

• "3 Miles" by Kadahj Bennett, directed by Tonasia Jones, featuring actors Jared Brown and Michael Underhill; a jogger bumps into a friend he hasn't talked to in years in front of Wally's Cafe Jazz Club on Mass Ave in 2024
  • Available for streaming on May 5, 2021

• "The Heights" by David Lindsay-Abaire, directed by Rebecca Bradshaw, featuring actors Nancy E. Carroll and Michael Knowlton; A tough Southie grandmother and her adult grandson climb Dorchester Heights to take stock and admire the view in spring 2023
  • Available for streaming on May 12, 2021

PREVIOUSLY ANNOUNCED DREAM BOSTON PLAYS (Available now for streaming):

• "Joy" by Elle Borders, directed by Melinda Lopez, featuring actors Jade Guerra and James Milord; a couple and their sleeping baby rush to the festivities in Franklin Park on Juneteenth 2025

• "The Rainman" by John Oluwole ADEkoje, directed by Rebecca Bradshaw, featuring actors Kadahj Bennett, Chris Tarjan, and Ricardo Pitts-Wiley; a former policeman meets a man from his past as he waits in a dreamscape 2024 version of a bus stop on Malcolm X Boulevard

• "The View from MemChurch" by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, directed by Caley Chase, featuring actors Emily Kuroda and Alberto Isaac; two friends from the class of 1960 reunite in Harvard Yard on Commencement Day, May 25, 2025

• "Virtual Attendance" by Miranda ADEkoje, directed by Pascale Florestal, featuring actors Becca A. Lewis and Ivy Ryan; set at the corner of Harrison Avenue and Dudley Street, two white women in their 20s are on their way to an exercise class in a gentrified Nubian Square

• "Feeling Now" by J. Sebastián Alberdi, directed by Caley Chase, featuring actors Cristobal Paulino and Adrian Peguero; two friends decide whether to part for the night after dancing at Machine, right outside Fenway Park on August 23, 2023

• "Echoes" by Patrick Gabridge, directed by Rosalind Bevan, featuring actors Omar Robinson and Rachel Cognata; two friends make a late-night visit to the Old State House on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre on March 5, 2025

• "The Moment Before the Lights Went Out on the Rothkos" by John Kuntz, directed by Rebecca Bradshaw, featuring actors Diego Arciniegas and Marianna Bassham; two museumgoers encounter two Rothko paintings and discover the mystery of each other at the Harvard Art Museums on January 22, 2022

• "Overture" by Kate Snodgrass, directed by Caley Chase, and featuring actors Elle Borders and Richard Snee, takes place on the top of MIT's Great Dome during the Boston Pops concert on July 4, 2024.

• "By the Rude Bridge" by Huntington Artist-in-Residence Melinda Lopez, directed by Rebecca Bradshaw, and featuring actor Lonnie Farmer, is set by the Concord Bridge at the Minuteman National Historical Park on Patriots' Day - April 19, 2025.

• "McKim" by Brenda Withers, directed by Rebecca Bradshaw, and featuring actors Krystal Hernandez and Nael Nacer, takes place in Bates Hall of the Boston Public Library's McKim Building on January 16, 2023.

• "The 54th in '22" by Kirsten Greenidge, directed by Rosalind Bevan, and featuring actors Brandon G. Green and Lyndsay Allyn Cox, is set at the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial on the edge of Boston Common, on May 31, 2022.

The audio plays can be listened to on the Huntington's website at huntingtontheatre.org/dream-boston or on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.