Cohesion Theatre Company Sets Second Season

Fresh off the successes of their Inaugural Season, including ParityFest, a city-wide festival of new play readings by female playwrights running through August 9, Cohesion Theatre Company announces Season Two, which will include four main stage productions, and a season-long workshop series. Cohesion will be working closely with new and emerging playwrights on world premiere works, and expanding its collaborative mission by working in partnership with local companies like Iron Crow Theatre and Baltimore Shakespeare Factory.

Cohesion will open Season Two with the first of three entries in The Trans* Voices Workshop Series: A Little Bit Not Normal by Lillie Franks. The Trans* Voices Workshop Series is a season-long endeavor to increase trans* visibility and open discussion about trans* issues. Three new and adapted scripts will receive one weekend of performance each after a short rehearsal and workshop period, with the goal of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each and readying them for full production. Cohesion is proud to partner with Iron Crow Theatre on this series and is seeking additional community partners to maximize the impact and facilitate discussion around these vitally important plays. The Trans* Voices Workshop Series has been funded by Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and the Baltimore Office of Promotion and The Arts.

The first play in the series, A Little Bit Not Normal by Chicago playwright Lillie Franks, and directed by Alicia Stanley, takes a unique and comedic look at the question: what is reality when the world refuses to see your true identity? Franks will be present for the rehearsal and performance period, and will participate in post-show discussions about the work and its development process. A Little Bit Not Normal will be presented October 30 - November 1, 2015 at Church on the Square, 1025 S. Potomac Street in Baltimore, and will travel to colleges around the city.

Cohesion's main stage productions will start in mid-November with a recommended play selection from the 2015 Kilroy's List: The History of American Pornography by Hilary Bettis. Directed by Frank B. Moorman, The History of American Pornography is startlingly personal as it takes you on a whirlwind journey of forty years of the American porn industry through the eyes of Star Papazian, who has grown up surrounded by her family's porn empire. On her fortieth birthday, she struggles with the meaning of intimacy in a world where sex, power, money and family collide. New York based playwright Hilary Bettis plans to be on hand for the rehearsal process, and Cohesion is currently planning playwright discussions to follow select performances. The History of American Pornography will run Nov. 19 through Dec. 6 at a location to be determined in Baltimore.

The second play in The Trans* Voice Workshop Series takes a fresh look at a classic text. Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare will be adapted and directed by Phil Vannoorbeeck and will seek to utilize trans* performers in the workshop and production. The adaptation will attempt to present Shakespeare's Trans* Comedy in the 21st Century as Vannoorbeeck takes a specific look at the gender-defying characters that already exist in Shakespeare's original text. Performances will include post-show discussion with the cast and director. Twelfth Night will be presented January 4 - 7, 2016.

Also in January, Cohesion will partner with Baltimore Shakespeare Factory to celebrate 2016 as the 400th Anniversary Year of William Shakespeare's Death. The companies will present a one weekend production of The Complete Deaths of William Shakespeare, a devised work of stage combat, bard appreciation, and silliness encompassing every death of every character written into all 37 of Shakespeare's plays (and maybe a few that aren't). The mayhem will be presented January 15 - 17, 2016.

For its second main stage production, Cohesion Co-Founder, Alicia Stanley, will direct Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Arguably one of the greatest plays in the English language, the turmoil in Denmark will be palpable in Stanley's production as they draw the audience into the emotional life of the often distant and intellectual protagonist. As Hamlet's grip on the world spirals out of control, and those closest find themselves manipulated and betrayed, the production elements will spiral right along with Hamlet. This ambitious production will run March 3 - 20, 2016. The location will be announced at a later date.

The third and final installment of The Trans* Voice Workshop Series presents Aphorisms on Gender, a new play by Alicia Stanley. As a non-binary individual, Stanley is excited to present a different viewpoint on gender identity that is not just male or female. Directed by Caitlin Carbone, Aphorisms on Gender examines the experience of being surrounded in society by only two choices, and coming to terms with being neither. Performances will include post show discussion with the cast and author. Aphorisms on Gender will be presented April 1 - 3, 2016.

Third in the lineup of main stage productions is Force Continuum by Kia Corthron, directed by Rosiland Cauthen. Chosen from Cohesion's Baltimore Theatre Syllabus Reading Series comes an exceptional work about American race relations and policing. Told through three generations of African American police officers, the story follows Dece, who is disillusioned and confused in a contemporary world of drug violence and brutality, and whose present-day struggles go beyond the routine paradox of being both black and a cop when he and his white partner become indicted in the death of a black female civilian. Force Continuum is a jagged, precarious journey that speaks to the heart of the current unrest in Baltimore and America. It will be presented April 21 - May 8, 2016 at a location to be determined.

Cohesion will head into summer on a high note with an epic fantasy adventure, Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere adapted for the stage by Robert Kauzlaric. Directed by Cohesion Co-Founder, Brad Norris, this modern fantasy tale takes us to the gritty and parallel world of London Below with the unwitting Richard Mayhew, who falls between the cracks of reality to end up caught in a dangerous adventure in a place familiar, foreign, and deadly. Befriending and protecting a powerful child, bargaining and bickering with the Marquis de Carabas, and hunting the great Beast of London, Richard's journey becomes one to save both his world Above, and the newly discovered world Below. Adapted from the best-selling novel by Neil Gaiman, Kauzlaric's adaptation was first produced at Lifeline Theatre in Chicago, and has since seen national and international productions. Neverwhere will premiere in Baltimore June 2 - 19, 2016 at a location to be determined.

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