Huntington Announces Additional New Plays In 'Dream Boston' Series

Huntington Theatre Company announces the launch of seven additional titles to its series of short audio plays entitled Dream Boston. Four plays were announced in July, and the next seven will be released over subsequent weeks this fall. They are available on the Huntington's website, as well as on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher.

The Dream Boston series was conceived and commissioned by the Huntington artistic department, and gives local playwrights the opportunity to imagine their favorite locations, landmarks, and friends in a future Boston, when people can once again meet and connect in the city - a vision of a future Boston that is somewhere between dream and reality. The first 4 audio plays, by Huntington Playwriting Fellow alumni Kirsten Greenidge, Kate Snodgrass, and Brenda Withers, and Huntington Artist-in-Residence Melinda Lopez, have been streamed over 5,000 times.

This next set of 7 plays includes works by local artists John Oluwole ADEkoje, Miranda ADEkoje, J. Sebastián Alberdi, Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro, Elle Borders, Patrick Gabridge, and John Kuntz. Each play is set at a specific local landmark with 1-3 characters, and is about 6 minutes in length. The local landmarks that serve as settings for this round of audio plays include Franklin Park, Harvard's Memorial Church, the Harvard Art Museums, the Old State House, the Fenway nightclub Machine, Harrison Avenue, and Malcolm X Boulevard.

"When we began this project in April, what our city needed most was hope, and that was what those first four plays each provided in their own way," says Charles Haugland, the Huntington's Director of New Work. "As we approached this round, we heard from artists that what the city needed now is more varied in tone - challenge, provocation, reflection, and surprise. Each of these new plays are a pleasure to listen to - a taste of art we all need - but they each also advance a vision of the future of our city: what it is and what it could be."

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 collective bargaining agreement. Dramaturgy for the project is a collaboration between Melinda Lopez, J. Sebastián Alberdi, Melory Mirashrafi, and Charles Haugland.

The Huntington has previously produced audio projects, including Walt McGough's "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Emerald Necklace" in partnership with the Emerald Necklace Conservatory for their exhibition Fog x FLO: Fujiko Nakaya on the Emerald Necklace; and a series of more than twenty short plays by Huntington Playwriting Fellows as part of the Emerging America Festival.

NEW DREAM BOSTON PLAYS:

• "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
  • Available for streaming on September 16, 2020

• "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
  • Available for streaming on September 23, 2020

• "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
  • Available for streaming on September 30, 2020

• "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
  • Available for streaming on October 7, 2020

• "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
  • Available for streaming on October 14, 2020

• "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
  • Available for streaming on October 21, 2020

• "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
  • Available for streaming on October 28, 2020

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

• "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 Minute Man 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, and are available on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher. Each play also has an Audiogram so Deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons can access them: huntingtontheatre.org/audiograms.

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