Soho Rep. Presents Jomama Jones in World Premiere of DUAT

In the darkest hour of the night, surrender your heart to call the light.

At the Connelly Theater (220 E. 4th St.), Soho Rep. welcomes the return of legendary entertainer Jomama Jones in the world premiere of Duat by Daniel Alexander Jones, running October 11-November 6. Five years ago, New York audiences and critics alike swooned over the Soho Rep. production of Jones's Radiate. David Rooney in his New York Times Critics' Pick review declared, "Radiate glows, making it hard not to surrender to this sequin-encrusted earth mother's soulful embrace." Hilton Als in The New Yorker said, "What we learn from Jomama's very particular radiance is this: you don't have to reduce the musical form to a musical just to make it more digestible. If you make a good, less reductive, and more grownup show, the people will come."

For the first time in his over 20-year career, two rivers of Jones's multifaceted theatrical work meet in Duat. Comprised of three parts and developed with and directed by Will Davis, Duat marries Jones's long-form solo autobiographical improvisations with his musical work as Jomama Jones - both an alter-ego and archetype, Jomama is a musical sensation that Jones channels and fully embodies.

In Duat, two halves of a soul hunt through a hall of records. A librarian breaks the seal of a mysterious archive. A teacher and her class prepare for the pageant to end all pageants. A little bit vaudeville, a little bit rock and soul, Duat conjures a spell of disintegration, transformation and regeneration through incandescent performances.

Jones has coined the term 'Afromysticism' to describe his theatrical work, which he says explores heightened and multidimensional experiences of time, space, dream and transformation. Rooted in a lineage of Black American Avant-Garde art and intimately connected to Queerness, Afromysticism draws upon some core ideas from Ancient Egyptian mythology which has fascinatEd Jones since childhood. For Jones what unfolds within us individually is linked to what unfolds in the broadest cosmic sense; the patterns, crises and transformations we undergo in a particular phase of our history are linked to what unfolds throughout time.

The cast of Duat includes Jacques Colimon, Tenzin Gund-Morrow, Toussaint Jeanlouis, Daniel Alexander Jones, Jomama Jones, Stacey Karen Robinson and Kaneza Schaal.

Duat features new music by Samora Pinderhughes, Bobby Halvorson and Jomama Jones. The creative team includes Arnulfo Maldonado (sets), Oana Botez (costumes), Solomon Weisbard (lights), and Elisheba Ittoop (sound),George Hoffmann and Greg Kozatek (props masters), Trevor Bachman (music director), Kyla Searle (dramaturg), and Rachel Gross (production stage manager).

Performances of Duat will take place October 11-November 6 (see schedule above) at the Connelly Theater, which is located at 220 East 4th Street in Manhattan. Critics are welcome as of October 19 for an official opening onTuesday, October 25 General admission tickets are $35/$65 and can be purchased by visiting sohorep.org or calling 212.352.3101. $30 general rush and $20 student rush (valid school ID) tickets are available at the box office one hour prior to curtain for each performance, no advance sales. $0.99 Sunday tickets will be offered on October 16 and 30 and are available first come, first served at the box office only.

About Soho Rep.

Founded in 1975, and in its theater on Walker Street since 1991, Soho Rep. has built an outstanding reputation for being at the forefront of new and innovative theater, serving as a vital center for Contemporary Theatre artists.

Soho Rep. is dedicated to cultivating and producing visionary, uncompromising, and exuberant new plays, performing to one of the youngest adult audiences in New York City, with over half aged 18-40.

Critics continue to herald Soho Rep. as a go-to theatre destination for new and original works. New York Magazine says, "this indispensable theater offers more excitement per chair than any space in town," Time Out New York says, "Soho Rep is the best theater in NYC," and The New York Times declares Soho Rep. to be "a first-class downtown company" and says, "The downtown powerhouse...regularly outclasses the work done on many of the city's larger stages." In 2015,The Village Voice named Soho Rep. the "Best Off-Broadway Theater Company."

In 2014, Soho Rep. was honored with a Drama Desk Award for Sustained Achievement. Over the last decade, Soho Rep. productions have garnered 18 OBIE Awards; the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Musical; 13 Drama Desk nominations, two Kesselring Awards, The New York Times Outstanding Playwriting Award for Dan LeFranc's Sixty Miles To Silverlake and, a special citation in The New York Drama Critics' Circle's 2012-13 awards. In recent years, Soho Rep. has presented plays by established and emerging theatre artists such as David Adjmi, Annie Baker, Alice Birch, Lucas Hnath, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, Sarah Kane, debbie tucker green, Young Jean Lee, Nature Theater of Oklahoma and Anne Washburn.

To post a comment, you must register and login.