Live Interactive Virtual Production of THE REAL JAMES BOND…WAS DOMINICAN Opens at Geva Theatre Center

Fort Worth's award-winning arts and service organization, DNAWORKS, is emerging from the pandemic with the next step towards in-person theatre-a live, interactive virtual production of The Real James Bond...Was Dominican at Rochester, New York's Geva Theatre Center. Christopher Rivas' innovative production is a true story about Porfirio Rubirosa, Ian Fleming's primary inspiration for Bond, and a young Dominican actor-to-be whose discovery of "Rubi" shakes his very foundation.

In The Real James Bond...Was Dominican, Rivas asks of Rubirosa's legacy: "How did someone who had so much influence in the world, who was involved in so many things, who had the most successful franchise in history based on him, how did he vanish?" This production answers that burning question.

Set to a live percussion score, The Real James Bond...Was Dominican is a young man's guide to love, sex, color, code-switching, white-washing, success, fake-it-till-you-make-it, and the roller coaster of finding one's true self. Complete with audience participation, including audience props available for pickup, this timely artistic offering is performed in real time on Zoom, live from Geva Theatre Center's Wilson stage.

DNAWORKS Co-Founder and Director of the project, Daniel Banks, says, "We are thrilled with this partnership with Geva Theatre Center and to be LIVE in a theatre again after over a year. Geva has been the most gracious host for this experiment into creating interactive, live, and remote theatre. We believed that we could create intimacy and excitement on Zoom; with the show and the Community Storycircle that follows, audiences have let us know that we have. In fact, in tonight's storycircle, an audience member shared, that he is usually moved in the theatre and was surprised how moved he could be on Zoom!"

The Real James Bond...Was Dominican is the first project to be initiated by the DNAWORKS Ensemble, an international collective of eighteen artists founded in 2017. The production was developed at Hi-ARTS and HERE (New York, NY), had its world premiere at the National Hispanic Cultural Center (Albuquerque, NM), and a run at Bishop Arts Theatre Center (Dallas, TX).

The artistic team includes Christopher Rivas (writer and performer), Daniel Banks (director and script development), Wilson R. Torres (original score and percussion), Driscoll Otto (lighting designer), ViDCo (livestream video designers), Laura Bustillos Jáquez (live camera operator and assistant director), Alexandra Kelly Colburn and Kate Freer (original production designers), and Katelan Braymer (production stage manager).

The Real James Bond...Was Dominican runs May 14 -29, 2021. Tickets for the general public are $30 and may be purchased at gevatheatre.org. Zoom links will be emailed to ticketholders the day of their scheduled performance. Instructions for picking up audience props (included with purchase) will be provided with ticket confirmation. A digital show kit is also available for nonlocal audience members. Each performance of The Real James Bond...Was Dominican will be performed on Zoom, live from the Wilson Stage. A video recording will not be made available.

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