Roger Q. Mason's THE DUAT To Receive World Premiere With Philadelphia Theatre Company

Black Filipinx playwright, Kilroys List honoree, and Dramatists Guild Catalyst Fellow Roger Q. Mason will premiere their play The Duat with Philadelphia Theatre Company this June. The production will be helmed by PTC’s Artistic Director, Taibi Magar and star Barrymore Award nominee Frank X. The production will run June 7-23 at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre.

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 judgment, 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 Duat will be presented in the round with seating onstage, creating a uniquely intimate experience as audiences transition through the Egyptian underworld inside one man’s battle to save his soul. 

“The Duat is about the complex nature of racial and cultural identity,” said playwright Roger Q. Mason. “Our world is filled with binaries and monoliths, but no one truly fits into a box. I am a multi-racial, plus sized, and queer human who never fits into anyone else’s social containers.  This play is an investigation of what it costs to maintain selfhood while still honoring community,” 

Philadelphia Theatre Company’s World Premiere of The Duat concludes Mason’s three-production national tour featuring LGBTQ2S themes, including the World Premiere of The Pride of Lions with Theatre Rhinoceros in San Francisco this past April and the Chicago Premiere of Lavender Men with About Face Theatre in May. 

The Duat was originally developed with The Fire This Time Festival and Watts Village Theater Company as part of the Not a Moment, But a Movement series with Center Theater Group. 

Roger Q. Mason

(Playwright) (they/them) is a writer and performer who uses the lens of history to disrupt the biases that divide rather than unite us. Their playwriting has been seen on Broadway (Circle in the Square Reading Series); Off and Off-Off-Broadway; and regionally. Mason's World Premiere of Lavender Men was lauded by the Los Angeles Times as "evoking the mingled visions of Suzan-Lori Parks, Jeremy O. Harris and Michael R. Jackson." They are a recipient of the inaugural Catalyst Fellowship, awarded by the Dramatists Guild Foundation, in celebrations of theatre makers whose work impacts social justice and civic change through art. As a filmmaker, Mason has been recognized by the British Film Institute, Lonely Wolf International Film Festival, SCAD Film Festival, AT&T Film Award and Atlanta International Film Festival. Their films have screened in the US, UK, Poland, Brazil, and Asia. Mason holds degrees from Princeton University, Middlebury College, and Northwestern University. They are a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, and an alum of the Ma-Yi’s Writing Lab, Page 73’s Interstate 73 Writers Group and Primary Stages Writing Cohort. Mason currently produces a memoir/cooking segment on Instagram called Cooking with Q: A Playwrights Guide to Telling My Trouble.  Previously, they co-hosted the podcast Sister Roger’s Gayborhood and hosted This Way Out Radio's Queerly Yours: Portraits in Courage. Mason has served as lead mentor of The Marsha P. Johnson Institute’s Starship Fellowship, the New Visions Fellowship and the Shay Foundation Fellowship. They are currently on faculty at CalArts. Instagram: @rogerq.mason

To post a comment, you must register and login.