Continuing a season of online content, Theater Alliance presents the world premiere of City in Transition: The Quadrant Series. The full-length evening of digital theater, drawing inspiration from DC’s four distinct-yet-neighboring communities, braids hip-hop culture, the nonprofit industrial complex, gentrification, and changing demographics together in a narrative of our vibrant city.
“The geographic boundaries of the District’s quadrants give us four distinct spaces,” says Raymond O. Caldwell, who directed the production. “Each one has developed and evolved in different ways, with different — yet shared — histories. In City in Transition: The Quadrant Series, four playwrights explore a few of the forces transforming DC — and, in turn, our nation.”
The four plays that comprise City in Transition were developed over the past year through Theater Alliance’s Hothouse New Play Development program by playwrights Khadijah Z. Ali-Coleman, Avery Collins, Shalom Omo-Osagie, and Leslie Scott-Jones. Each playwright developed a narrative specific to one of DC’s quadrants. Now, woven together into one digital experience, they create a tapestry of disparate yet shared stories — much like the four areas of DC itself.
Under the guidance and expertise of Photography Directors Kelly Colburn and Dylan Uremovich, as well as Art Director Jonathan Dahm Robertson, Theater Alliance has recreated the intimate theatrical nature of its work for the camera.
“Each of the quadrants is so different,” says Caldwell, “but their symbiotic relationship is what makes our city so unique. City in Transition is both an exploration and a love letter to the city we call home.”
EXTENDED: City in Transition: The Quadrant Series opens April 24, 2021, with a special 8 pm ET screening. The production will be available for on-demand viewing April 25 through June 6. Tickets are available online or by phone, 202-241-2539. (General admission is $25–30; seniors/students/military, $15–20; radical neighboring, $10.) The production has been prerecorded, utilizing stringent safety precautions, and will include weekly community conversations, mirroring Theater Alliance’s regular post-show dialogues.
CAST
Morgan Booth
Melissa Carter
Morgan Charece
Molly Cohen
Kelsey Delemar
Bayou Elom
Dylan Fleming
Charles Franklin IV
Nathanael Hatchett
Emmanuel Kyei-Baffour
Melanie Lawrence
Janelle Odom
Jennifer Osborn
Shannon Palmer
Llogan Peters
Nia Savoy
Kayla Warren
Kevin Thorne
Daniel Young
CREATIVE TEAM
Director Raymond O. Caldwell
Directors of Photography Kelly Colburn & Dylan Uremovich
Technical Director/Art Director Jonathan Dahm Robertson
Lighting Designer Dylan Uremovich
Sound Designer & Audio Post-Production Matthew M. Nielson
Costume Designer Jeannette Christensen
Assistant Costume Designer Savannah Gomez
Master Electrician Elliott Shugoll
Associate Producer Sean-Maurice Lynch
Production Manager Rachel Walsh
Edited by Kelly Colburn, Cameron Harris, Jonathan Dahm Robertson, Nitsan Scharf, and Dylan Uremovich
VFX Supervisor Dylan Uremovich
Visual FX by Kelly Colburn, Deja Collins, Jonathan Dahm Robertson, Nitsan Scharf, Zavier Augustus Lee Taylor and Dylan Uremovich
Audio Post Production Assistant navi
Original Music The Curious Music Company
ABOUT THEATER ALLIANCE
Theater Alliance develops, produces, and presents socially conscious, thought-provoking work that fully engages our community in active dialogue. As the resident theater company of the Anacostia Playhouse since 2013, Theater Alliance is proud to produce professional, award-winning work in Anacostia. Through our work, Theater Alliance hopes to create an audience laboratory where the myriad perspectives of DC are face-to-face, confronting issues and tackling difficult questions that affect our diverse community.
Locally, Theater Alliance has twice been a finalist for the Mayor’s Arts Award; featured in the Greater Washington Catalogue for Philanthropy; received the Capitol Hill Community Foundation’s Keller Award for making significant, ongoing contributions to the life of the community; and awarded the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ UPSTART Grant for capacity building. Nationally, we have received the American Theatre Wing’s National Theater Company Grant as well as became a member of Theatre Communications Group and the National New Play Network. Theater Alliance has received 95 Helen Hayes Award Nominations and 22 Helen Hayes Awards.
City in Transition: The Quadrant Series is made possible through the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, the Revada Foundation, and the Arts Forward Fund. Season 18 at Theater Alliance is generously sponsored by David and Jean Heilman Grier.
