IAMA Theatre Company Announces 2022-23 Season Featuring Two World Premieres & More

AMA Theatre Company has announced its 2022-23 15th anniversary "Jubilee" season: two world premieres at the company's new, permanent home at Atwater Village Theatre; a production to be announced at a later date; and a West Coast premiere, presented in association with Center Theatre Group, at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Culver City.

Ahead of what was to become a "lost" season for the entire theater community, a national "Jubilee" theater initiative in 2020-21 asked theaters around the country to give voice to women, people of color, LBGTQA artists and artists of varied physical and cognitive abilities. In 2022-23, IAMA takes back that narrative.

"As we emerge from the pandemic with a vengeance and feel the pull of change and progress, so many voices remain underrepresented," says IAMA artistic director Stefanie Black. "We find ourselves in little boxes, either because we put ourselves there or because our world does. Life isn't what it appears from the outside; the windows are tinted. We need to break out of these boxes. Create a new narrative. Let our voices be loud, create our own theater cannon. Change the way we tell stories, our stories. The stories of those who have, until now, been silenced or pushed aside. Shine light on our power, our grief, our loss, our beginnings and endings, our relationships. Our feminine power. How we trust ourselves and each other."

To that end, IAMA opens the season in November with the world premiere of Smile, in which a 17-year-old Latinx girl forms a complicated relationship with her guidance counselor following an incident of violence at her affluent school. Setting Smile in 1992, the first "Year of the Woman," playwright Melissa Jane Osborne and director Michelle Bossy, both IAMA ensemble members, explore the ways we learn to silence trauma and the repercussions to those around us. (November 10 through December 5, 2022 at Atwater Village Theatre; previews begin November 6).

A play yet to be announced is slated to fill the season's March-April slot.

In May, IAMA associate artistic director Rodney To will direct the world premiere of The Bottoming Process by fellow Filipinx artist Nicholas Pilapil. Lucille Lortel Award-winning, multiple Drama Desk Award nominated actor George Salazar (Be More Chill, The Lightning Thief) is set to star in this dark comedy about two writers who meet at WeWork fall in love - or something like it. One is a famed novelist, and the other is a nobody who's mostly funny on Twitter. One is nearing middle age, and the other is flailing through their twenties. One is White, and the other is definitely Not. As they mate, date and cohabitate, they grapple with issues of race, sex, power and the model minority myth, all to find out who's really on top. (May 18 through June 12, 2023 at Atwater Village Theatre; previews May 14-17).

Finally, IAMA joins forces with Center Theatre Group to present the West Coast premiere of Our Dear Dead Drug Lord in August. An abandoned tree house, a Ouija board, and a group of teenage girls set the scene for a wild and twisted exploration into the young minds of women as they attempt to summon the ghost of Colombian drug cartel leader Pablo Escobar. Mystery and magic collide in this fierce comedy written by Alexis Scheer and directed by Center Theatre Group associate artistic director Lindsay Allbaugh. (August 27 through Sept. 17, 2023 at the Kirk Douglas Theatre; previews begin August 20).

In addition to these fully-staged productions, IAMA will present its annual New Works Festival over the course of two weekends this fall (September 16-25, 2022), and continue to develop new work via its Shonda Rhimes Unsung Voices Playwriting Commission and Emerging Playwrights Lab.

Founded in 2007, IAMA is a Los Angeles-based ensemble of artists committed to the creation and cultivation of new voices and artists that challenge boundaries and take risks, while fostering an inclusive community that inspires theater-makers of future generations. Los Angeles is one of the most diverse metropolitan areas in the world and IAMA's work reflects the new voices and changing attitudes that continue to shape this city, state, country and world. Designated by Playbill as "one of 20 regional houses every theater lover must know," the award-winning company has seen many plays generated at IAMA travel to off-Broadway, including to Second Stage and Playwrights Horizons, then go on to be performed regionally and internationally. IAMA members have been featured in numerous critically acclaimed TV shows and films as well as in a vast array of theater and live performances on and off-Broadway and across the country. IAMA has been dedicated to developing new plays and musicals by emerging and established playwrights, culminating in over 25 world, West Coast and Los Angeles premieres.

For more information about IAMA Theatre Company's 2022-23 season, go to www.iamatheatre.com.

To post a comment, you must register and login.