Simpatico Theatre’s 2020/2021 Season: A Season of SEEDS

This season we are planting seeds for the future and examining questions of how a community can grow.  Simpatico is dedicated to providing artists with a variety of developmental opportunities for new work this season, with an emphasis on process over product.  With the “Simpatico SEED Projects,” lead artists will be empowered to create new works of art that celebrate the power of collaboration.

The SEED Projects (Simpatico Engages Everyone Digitally) will work to create an environment for the artists involved that deepens their connection to the work and creates unique opportunities to share those experiences with Simpatico audiences. Each SEED Project will ultimately receive a fully staged live production with Simpatico at some point in the future when it is safe for all our artists and audiences to gather together again.  We are keeping that timeline open in order to best accommodate the artists involved in each creative process. 

The exact path of these SEED Projects will be determined by the lead artists involved: Malika Oyetimein, Tamanya Garza, and Adam and Charlie DelMarcelle. As always, it is Simpatico’s goal to make all projects financially accessible via PWYD ticketing, and we will be exploring new avenues of digital accessibility this season as well.

The season will begin with A SHADOW THAT BROKE THE LIGHT, a one-man show written by Adam and Charlie DelMarcelle and performed by multi-Barrymore Award-winning actor Charlie DelMarcelle. This project will release a series of short videos, vignettes of the full-length play, on the loss of Charlie and Adam’s younger brother Joey, to a heroin overdose in 2014. Adam and Charlie have been on the front lines addressing this epidemic in a variety of ways and A SHADOW THAT BROKE THE LIGHT serves as a living memorial for those who have gone, those who have been left behind, and those who we may never know. This virtual production will be co-presented with Troy Foundry Theatre in New York. Each new chapter will be accompanied by a community event designed to shed light on the isolation and fear that is coming to define the opioid epidemic in 2020.

In 2021 we will continue our work with (S)LAUGHTER: A PLAY ON PAIN. When a pregnant community activist is thrown in prison for “standing her ground” she goes into labor and is forced to give birth in solitary confinement, shackled to a bed. Alone and afraid, she cries out and her epigenetic memory answers the call, bringing help she never envisioned. (S)LAUGHTER: A PLAY ON PAIN written by Malika Oyetimein, is a poetic and painful look at the intersections of the racial injustices of the American healthcare system and prison system. This work will be produced in conjunction with Oyetimein and Brennie Tellu’s company unBossed Productions.

Based on playwright Isaac Gomez's intimate interviews, THE WAY SHE SPOKE is a raw and riveting exploration of responsibility that follows one playwright's journey to give voice to a city of women on the Mexican border silenced by violence, fear, and a world that has turned a deaf ear to their stories. Director Tamanya M. M. Garza (CRY IT OUT) will investigate the setting of the play, the city where she and the playwright both grew up, and explore the places where their experiences mirror, and intersect with, the women whose worlds are shattered in the play. Garza will use this time to collect artifacts and documentation of these women, the brutal world they were forced to inhabit, and the families who went searching for them on both sides of the border.

Simpatico is proud to collaborate with Jouska PlayWorks, an assembly of Black playwrights, all of whom are committed to creating theatre to enrich, entertain, empower, and awaken the moral conscience.  Together with Simpatico, the organization will present the Jouska PlayWorks Virtual New Play Showcase, featuring excerpts from seven new plays created by Jouska artists. These pieces will be presented as Pay What You Decide (PWYD) digital readings with donations going to organizations designated by the playwrights.  The project will employ 26 actors, 3 directors and a project stage manager, all while providing the opportunity for Black artists to lead the development of their own work.

The showcase will feature 45-minute excerpts of the following plays: 504 or the SAVIOR PLAY by Josh A. Campbell, and TWENTY-SIX by Ang Bey, directed by Katrina Shobe; SIXTEEN by Megan Schumacher, FREUD AND HIS NEGRO by Teresa Miller, and THE RETURN OF THE SHO-GUN by Keenya Jackson, directed by Victoria Goins; GTFOH by Nikki Brake-Sillá, and  IF & WHEN by Quinn D. Eli, directed by Alexandra Espinoza. The stage-manager for the project is Noelle Diane Johnson.