September 14 - 30, 2023
Written by Tori Sampson
Directed by Anyika McMillan-Herod
A Regional Premiere Production
Soul Rep is ecstatic to collaborate with Echo Theatre again on the regional premiere production of Tori Sampson’s CADILLAC CREW, deemed by Journal Inquirer as
“Some of the best new theater of the year... Sampson gives us four great characters, three black and one white, all with different points of view on race and gender relations, but all with the same objective, equality for women of color.”
On the day of a much-anticipated speech by Rosa Parks during the height of the Civil Rights Movement, four activists working in a Virginia civil rights office wonder whether the proclamation of equality amongst mankind includes women. With remarkable insight and unexpected humor, Cadillac Crew reclaims the stories of the forgotten leaders who blazed the trail for desegregation and women’s rights and asks: when will the world be ready to embrace women in all their capacity. Cadillac Crew premiered at Yale Repertory Theater in New Haven, Connecticut on April 26, 2019. The production will run at the Bath House Cultural Center.
Playwright Tori Sampson’s plays include If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka (Playwrights Horizons, 2019), This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre, UPCOMING 2022), and Cadillac Crew (Yale Repertory Theater, 2019). Her plays have been developed at Great Plains Theatre Conference, Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s The Ground Floor residency program, Victory Garden’s IGNITION Festival of New Plays, Playwrights Foundation and Ubuntu Theater. She is a native of Boston and holds an MFA in Playwriting from Yale.
October 12- 22, 2023
Written by Erin Malone Turner
Directed by Dee Hunter-Smith & La Hunter Smith
A World Premiere
Soul Rep commissioned celebrated up and coming area playwright, Erin Malone Turner, to develop a comedic play about being Black and queer, through a generous TACA New Works Grant.
Malone’s gorgeous new play set in a Black owned bookstore in Louisiana in the 1990’s, is a celebration of “first” queer love, the human spirit, bibliophiles, and community. It is a play Malone has written
“for anyone falling in love or trying not to, for those hiding from the world or stepping out into it, for people who refuse to be subdued. for the book lovers and travelers, for the have-a-good-time-ers, for the businesswomen and stand-in mothers, for the average students and decent employees, for the tea enthusiasts and amateur birdwatchers. for those hoping and grieving, especially, remarkably at the same time. for the queers of the South and the riot of their resilience and light. for the buoyant people of Louisiana who decline to drown. for all the Charms, Ivys, Ellisons, Jacs, and Peanuts out there. for you. for me.”
Playwright Erin Malone Turner is a New Orleans born, Dallas-based playwright, poet, actor, and middle school English teacher. She graduated from UT Arlington in 2017 with a BA in English and a Creative Writing minor. Her featured plays across DFW include: “the secret keepers” & “GRAY” (Bishop Arts Theatre Center), through a glass darkly (Amphibian Stage), “how to catch a ghost” (Kitchen Dog Theater), “the way it was/the way it is” (Soul Repertory Theatre), and “i thought you hung the moon” (Luckenbooth Theatre) - the last of which was nominated for a BroadwayWorld Dallas award. Her artistic drive includes telling Black stories within the realm of speculative fiction. She has been mentored by Audra McDonald for the past year.
February 17 - March 5, 2024
Written by Jaime Chibaud
Directed by Anyika McMillan-Herod
A World Premiere
The second co-production of Soul Rep’s season will serve as its biennial collaboration with Cara Mia Theatre – the Café Negro Arts Series – and Mexico based theater company, Mulato Teatro. This project is funded in part by an NEA grant. YANGA, is inspired by the real-life story of Gaspar Yanga who led a slave revolt and eventually negotiated an independent territory with the Spanish crown less than 100 years after the arrival of Hernán Cortés in Mexico.
Jaime Chabaud is a Mexican playwright, screenwriter, teacher and researcher, who has written more than 130 plays over his career but is popularly known for his television work. His creative work has been translated into multiple languages and has received numerous awards including the 2013 Juan Ruiz de Alarcón Drama Prize, the 2010 World Theater Prize (Premio Teatro del Mundo) from the University of Buenos Aires and 2006 Víctor Hugo Rascón Banda National Drama Prize. Chabaud is also the founder and director of the Paso de gato theater magazine and Mulato Teatro Theater Company based in Mexico.
June 13 - June 30, 2024
Written by Keith Glover
Directed by Guinea Bennett-Price
Thunder Knocking on the Door, a "bluesical" deemed by critics as “the tastiest, bluesiest score in recent memory,” is written by Keith Glover with music by Keb' Mo'. The piece takes place at the crossroads of “here and there." In the mythical tale, Marvell Thunder, a mysterious shapeshifter, challenges Glory, a blind songstress, to a magical duel on the Delta Blues guitar. This delightful new musical will run in June 2024 at The Undermain Theater. Play off the Page’s Mary Aalgaard says
This blusical has everything: family dynamic, a love story, a mythical character, soul-searching, and some of the best music I’ve ever heard.
Keith Glover is from Bessemer, Ala. He is a member of The New Dramatist Playwrights Organization and a recipient of a Pew Charitable Fellowship grant in 1996. His first plays include Dancing on Moonlight (New York Shakespeare Festival, 1995), Coming of the Hurricane (Denver Center Theatre Company, 1994, Penumbra Theatre Company, 1995, Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., 1996) and Thunder Knocking on the Door, a blusical tale of rhythm and blues, was produced by the Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Baltimore's Center Stage, The Dallas Theatre Center and Yale Repertory Theatre during the 1996-97 season.
January 11- 20, 2024
Written by Anyika McMillan-Herod
Funded in part by a generous ARTSACTIVATE grant from the City of Dallas Office of Art and Culture.
In conjunction with The AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project, Soul Rep co-founder and noted Dallas playwright, Anyika McMillan-Herod presents her newest play. The production, a serio-comedy set in 2020 in Dallas’ Elm Thicket community where McMillan-Herod grew up, centers around two middle aged neighbors’ attempt to explore love and friendship while facing a complicated history, world pandemic, social unrest, and neighborhood gentrification.
