Obama-ology at Skylight Theatre Company

Skylight Theatre takes an election year look at politics with the American Premiere of OBAMA-OLOGY by Aurin Squire. Where do you stand? How did we get here and where we are going. OBAMA-OLOGY will run in rep with The National New Playwright Network Rolling World Premiere of CHURCH & STATE by EMMY nominated writer Jason Odell Williams. Both plays are produced in association with Providence Entertainment, LTD.

Changing the world isn’t as easy as Warren had imagined. An enthusiastic African-American college graduate joins the 2008 Obama campaign and lands in the streets of East Cleveland. Between knocking on doors, fending off cops, and questioning his own identity, he discovers that working in the spotlight of “Hope” can be challenging. Obama-ology is a compelling exploration of re-igniting the dreams of a black minority and the hopes of a country.

"You know this isn’t going to end in a nice and neat way…I confessed this fear to a friend the day before America’s 2008 election. I worried about an electorate’s misguided and messianic beliefs in ‘the one.’ It can be a terribly fraught and untenable position because even the slightest setback seems to not only reflect poorly on your entire race, but enrages your supporters who feel as if they have been morally betrayed, while delighting your detractors who feel as if their bigotry has been vindicated. “Obama-ology” is about that strange ‘oneness’ that can drive a person crazy, incite an act of heroism, disintegrate familial ties, win an election, re-arrange a character’s DNA, and change our destiny” - Aurin Squire; Playwright

Obama-ology opens at 8:30pm on July 23rd and runs through August 28, 2016, playing Fridays 8:30 and Sundays 7:00. Church & State opens at 8:30pm on July 2nd and runs through August 14th, playing Saturdays 8:30pm and Sundays 3pm. Skylight Theatre is located at 1816 1/2 N. Vermont Ave., LA. CA. 90027. Tickets are $15 - $39 (or two-play package $63). Reservations: 213-761-7061 or online at http://skylighttix.com

Aurin Squire (Playwright – Obama-ology) is an award-winning playwright, journalist, and multimedia artist. A recent graduate of Juilliard, he has had fellowships at the Dramatists Guild of America, National Black Theatre, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. Aurin has worked as a journalist for The New Republic, Talking Points Memo, ESPN, The Chicago Tribune, Miami Herald, and over a dozen publications. "Obama-ology" was part of Juilliard’s summer workshop before premiering in London at Finborough Theatre in December 2014. The play was remounted at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London during the spring of 2015. His plays have been developed and produced at venues like Abington Theatre, ArcLight Theatre, Ars Nova, Barrington Stage Company, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Cherry Lane, and more. Squire worked as a staff writer for the new CBS political satire BrainDead, a summer series premiering June2016. His play "Running on Fire" will be at the O'Neill Theatre Conference this summer. He is a member of the 2016 incoming New Dramatists playwrights.

Jon Lawrence Rivera (Director – Obama-ology) is the recipient of the Inaugural Career Achievement Award from Stage Raw, and five Ovation Award nominations. Most recently, he directed the World Premiere of The End Times by Jesse Mu-En Shao (CRITIC’S CHOICE – LA Times, GO! – LA Weekly) and the following world premieres for Playwrights’ Arena: @thespeedofJake by Jennifer Maisel, Circus Ugly by Gabriel Rivas Gomez, Painting In Red by Luis Alfaro, Cinnamon Girl by Velina Hasu Houston and Nathan Wang (also at the 2nd Beijing University International Musical Theater Festival), Dallas Non-Stop by Boni B. Alvarez, The Anatomy of Gazellas by Janine Salinas Schoenberg, Girl Most Likely To by Michael Premsrirat, bonded by Donald Jolly and Euripides’ Helen by Nick Salamone (at the Getty Villa). Other recent work includes: Criers For Hire by Giovanni Ortega at East West Players, A Class Act by Ed Kleban for Musical Theatre Guild and Stand-Off at Hwy #37 by Vickie Ramirez for Native Voices at the Autry (also at the University of South Dakota). Rivera is the recipient of a NY Fringe Festival Award for directing Hillary Agonistes, an LA Weekly Award for directing Sea Change. Rivera is the founding artistic director of Playwrights‘Arena.

Skylight Theatre Company discovers, develops and produces new, exhilarating works that expand mainstream theatre while nurturing and educating the people who create them. A recipient of the prestigious Steinberg National Theatre Critics Citation (Dontrell, Who Kissed The Sea – Nathan Alan Davis), Skylight’s resident PlayLab writers have been recognized with productions nationwide, a national 2014 USA Ford Fellowship in Theater and Performance (Sigrid Gilmer), and locally as a winner in the 2015 Humanitas/CTG Playwriting Prize (Louisa Hill). Skylight won 4 Ovation Awards in 2014 for The Wrong Man and Pray To Ball (the most of any intimate theatre in LA). LA Weekly included the Skylight’s productions of Years To The Day, Open House and Sexsting on their Top Ten list of plays for 2013. Skylight's first year as a company dedicated to developing new plays was 2011; their production of Hermetically Sealed made theLA Times annual list of Top Ten Plays, and Mad Women moved from Los Angeles to La MaMa in New York. Since then, plays developed by Skylight have been performed in Chicago, New York, Washington D.C., Oregon, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, Kansas City, and internationally in Scotland and France. In 2014, Dramatist Magazine cited Skylight as a “powerhouse of new play development.” For more information, script submission policy and production history go to http://skylighttheatrecompany.com