EgoPo Unearths A 2020-2021 Season Of Isolations

EgoPo Classic Theater announces its 2020-2021 Season of Isolations, a festival of four radically intimate theatrical events experienced in innovative socially distanced formats.

EgoPo saw the need for social distancing as an opportunity to create new ways of experiencing and watching theater - sometimes even redefining what theater can be. Each piece of this special season re-examines the interaction between audiences and performance, creating intensely intimate events that can be experienced safely in the midst of our ever-changing environment. The season reflects our communal experience of isolating over the last many months by using the classic literary mode of the solitary artist choosing to live in self-imposed isolation in order to seek transformation.

"This season has been carefully constructed as both a direct response to our current moment and a reflection of our experience of living in it. I wanted to use this opportunity to delve into and even celebrate this strange moment in time. Instead of being beaten down by our reality, how can we use this experience to transform ourselves?" says EgoPo Artistic Director, Lane Savadove.

In the Fall/Winter of 2020, EgoPo invites audiences to experience two original theater works from the safety of their homes. First with Brenna Geffers' and Natalia de la Torre's Emily, a five-week mail event inspired by Emily Dickinson, followed by Underground, a virtual adaptation of Dostoyevsky, created by EgoPo Associate Producer, Dane Eissler, and Philadelphia-based artist, Damien J. Wallace.

In the Winter/Spring of 2021, EgoPo will present two highly distanced and isolated productions: Samuel Beckett's Rockaby, presented one-on-one through a glass window, and a drive-in version of Adam Rapp's Nocturne. All four pieces are curated to provide an intensely human and connected experience while we continue to remain physically apart. *see below for more details on each show

This season also recognizes our first Artist-in-Residence, an EgoPo fan-favorite, Damien J. Wallace, who recently starred in last season's Buried Child, as well as the 2018-2019 production of "Master Harold"...and the Boys. A prolific actor specializing in the works of August Wilson, Damien is also a veteran director and writer. This season he will be featured in three of our works, co-creating and performing in Underground, acting in Nocturne, and making his EgoPo directorial debut with Rockaby. "After years of systemic racism and oppression, as always, the creative arts are playing an active role in leading the charge for social change of inclusion and equality. Over the past two seasons, I've worked with EgoPo Classic Theater as an actor, but now I embrace the opportunity to collaborate with them as a contributing creative artist in planning and producing a season that speaks to our current climate," says Wallace.

Damien is also the Artistic Director of local Philadelphia-based company, Lawrence Theatre, founded by Derrell Lawrence in 2018. EgoPo and Lawrence Theatre Company will partner this season as co-producers of Underground, and EgoPo will host a virtual performance of their new play, Three OG's, in January.

EgoPo will conclude the season with the "awakening" of Curse of the Starving Class, the postponed final production of the 2019-2020 Shepard Season, if and when it is safe for audiences to come together in a traditional theater setting.

For more information on the season, please visit www.egopo.org/isolations.

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