Front Porch Arts Collective Announces Bold + Collaborative 7th Season

The Front Porch Arts Collective (The Porch) announces a jubilant season of theater and dynamic collaborations! Fresh off the heels of 30 Elliot Norton Award nominations, The Porch's seventh season surely doesn't show any signs of the company slowing down any time soon.

While the sixth season included The Porch's first solo production, the 2023/2024 season has The Porch revisiting the partnerships and relationships that have helped to shape the company's reputation and place on the Boston theater scene over the past years. "We double our impact and make our companies better when we work in collaboration. It's a model that works, and we'll keep refining it" says Dawn M. Simmons, Co-Producing Artistic Director. The seventh season continues The Porch's dedication to storytelling from a Black perspective; guaranteed to engage audiences and create inspiring community discussion and opportunities to connect.

Kicking off with Fat Ham by Jame Ijames, in association with The Huntington and Alliance Theatre, in this deliciously funny, Pulitzer Prize-winning new play, sweet and sensitive Juicy wants to make his own way as a queer Black man growing up in a Southern family until his father's ghost turns up at a backyard barbecue and insists that Juicy avenge his murder. A smart and sharp reinvention of Shakespeare's masterpiece takes Broadway by storm this spring before coming to The Huntington this fall. "I am very excited for Fat Ham to meet the audiences in Boston. The play has a powerful message of transformation, radical acceptance, and joy! This show is for anyone looking for a space of liberation and beauty" says playwright James Ijames.

Following Fat Ham, The Porch heads back to the Modern Theatre at Suffolk University, the scene for this past season's Chicken and Biscuits by Douglas Lyons, with Exception To The Rule, by Dave Harris. Stuck in detention in the worst high school in the city, six Black students try to make it through, fighting, flirting, and teasing. "Exception to the Rule is funny, and hard! The characters are real. How does our society treat the kids that are considered "low achieving?" What does it mean to be a token black kid in a sea of other black kids?" says director Donovan Holt. Exception to the Rule partners The Porch once again with Suffolk University and with Northeastern University for the first time.

Michael R. Jackson's blisteringly funny masterwork A Strange Loop exposes the heart and soul of a young black queer artist grappling with desires, identity, and instincts he loves and loathes. "Theatre at its best is brave, moving, uplifting, and challenging," says Maurice Emmanuel Parent, director of A Strange Loop and The Porch Co-Producing Artistic Director. "This incredible musical is that and then some! When I saw it I couldn't believe something this black and queer and honest was on Broadway. I'm ecstatic to be able to share it with Boston audiences." Winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and 2022 Tony Award for Best Musical, Front Porch and SpeakEasy Stage are together again to bring A Strange Loop to Boston.

Heading back to Cambridge for the final production of the season, The Porch teams up with their first homies at Central Square Theater to produce the Tony Award, and Pulitzer Prize-winning play Next to Normal. Dad's an architect. Mom rushes to pack lunches and pour cereal. Their daughter and son are bright, wise-cracking teens. A typical American family. Except Mom's been battling bipolar disorder for 16 years. Director Pascale Florestal, "We'll bring you this story through a new lens examining a Black upper middle-class family. Reminding us that these experiences happen to all families and how the intersections of race, gender, and class affect our lives." This collaboration will catapult audiences inside the minds and hearts of each member of this Black family addressing loss and suburban life with love, heart, and soul.

Follow Front Porch Arts Collective at www.frontporcharts.org.

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