Roger Q. Mason's THE DUAT Premieres With Center Theatre Group

Acclaimed Black Filipinx playwright and Kilroys List honoree Roger Q. Mason (they/them) is currently premiering their play The Duat with the renowned Center Theatre Group in Los Angeles, presented in association with the Obie Award-winning The Fire This Time Festival and Watts Village Theater Company as part of the series "Not a Moment, But a Movement," amplifying black artists and their stories. This digital theatre presentation is directed by Taibi Magar (The Great Leap at Atlantic Theatre Company; Is God Is with Soho Rep; Underground Railroad Game at Ars Nova) and performed by Gregg Daniel ("Insecure" on HBO) with percussionist David Leach. Performances ($10) are available on-demand now through August 12 at www.CTGLA.org/NotAMoment.

Fusing dialogue, music and movement, The Duat follows Cornelius Johnson, a former FBI COINTELPRO (Counterintelligence Program) informant as he awakens in the Egyptian afterlife. While he awaits judgement, Cornelius struggles to come to terms with his family history and his own troubling role in the civil rights movement at UCLA in the late 60s.
The digital premiere of The Duat features lighting design by Brandon Baruch, live music composed and performed by David Leach, sound design and original music composed by David Gonzalez, and choreography by Michael Tomlin III. The Duat was filmed at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles and edited by Jabari Phillips.

Roger Q. Mason (Playwright) (they/them) is an award-winning writer, performer and educator known for using history's lens to highlight the biases that separate rather than unite us. Mason's playwriting has been seen on Broadway at Circle in the Square (Circle Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway at New York Theatre Workshop, New Group, The Fire This Time Festival, Dixon Place, American Theatre of Actors, Flea Theatre, and Access Theater; and regionally at McCarter Theatre, Center Theatre Group, Victory Gardens, Chicago Dramatists, Steep Theatre, Serenbe Playhouse, Theatre Rhinoceros, Open Fist Theatre Company, EST/LA, Coeurage Theatre, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Son of Semele, and Skylight Theatre. They are an honoree of the Kilroys List; the recipient of the Chuck Rowland Pioneer Award; the Fire This Time Festival Alumni Spotlight, and the Hollywood Fringe Festival Encore Producers Award; and a finalist for the Geffen Writers' Room, Lark Playwright's Week and the Screencraft Play Award. Mason's films have screened at the Outshine Film Festival, Rochester International LGBTQ Film Festival, and the Pan African Film Festival. They've been recognized by the AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of Page 73's Interstate 73 Writers Group, the co-host of Sister Roger's Gayborhood podcast, and the co-founder/lead mentor of the New Visions Fellowship for Black Trans and Gender non-conforming playwrights.

Taibi Magar (Director) is an Egyptian-American director based in New York, and a graduate of the Brown University MFA program. Most recently she directed Capsule by Whitney White and Peter Mark Kendall (Under the Radar Festival/The Public Theater, co-directed with Tyler Dobrowsky) and Help by Claudia Rankine (The Shed) which was paused due to the pandemic. Other NY credits: Blue Ridge starring Marin Ireland and The Great Leap starring BD Wong (Atlantic Theatre Company); Is God Is (Soho Rep, 2018 Obie Award;) Master (The Foundry, NYT Critics Pick) and Underground Railroad Game (Ars Nova, NYT Critics Pick). She also premiered the new musical We Live In Cairo at A.R.T. Boston. Regional: Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Alley Theatre, The Guthrie Theater and Seattle Repertory Theatre, among others. International: Hamburg Festival, Edinburgh Festival, Malthouse Theatre (Melbourne) and Soho Theatre (London). Other: She is the recipient of a Stephen Sondheim Fellowship, Oregon Shakespeare Festival Fellowship, Public Theater Shakespeare Fellowship and TFANA Actors and Director Project Fellowship. Taibi is an alumni of the Lincoln Center Directors Lab and a NYTW Usual Suspect. Upcoming: A Play For The Living In The Time Of Extinction (BCS, streaming mid-July) and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 (Signature Theatre).

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