Dobama Theatre Receives Prestigious Diversity Award

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH — Dobama Theatre has received the Kathryn V. Lamkey Award, given to theaters that honor the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion. Only three theaters and one individual received the award this year.

The Lamkey Award is presented by the Actors' Equity Association. This is the first major award from the AEA for Dobama, which joined the Association in 2014.

“As artists with the incredible responsibility of telling stories of, and for, our shared community, we often spend time focused on what we’re not doing and what we need to do better,” said Artistic Director Nathan Motta in his acceptance speech. “At Dobama, what we are trying to do, quite simply, is produce important new plays with integrity.”

Previous winners of the Lamkey Award include Goodman Theatre, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre and the Joyce Foundation.

For the 2018-2019 season, Dobama is producing six plays written by women, including Dominique Morisseau, Karen Zacarías and Annie Baker. Their plays include characters that span races, colors, creeds, classes, ages and sexualities, Dobama said in a press release. Dobama officials have also tried to adhere to "non-traditional casting" by choosing the best actor for a role, regardless of their identity.

"We all know the prejudices that are burned into our history and our society through systems and government and language and minds and hearts," Motta said at the conclusion of his speech. "We recognize the vital and intentional “day in, day out” work of fighting those biases in ourselves as individuals and as a collective. We’ll probably screw up once in a while. I know I do. But, know we’ll continue to do our very best and that we will keep striving to do better by you and by our shared community. The great work continues. Thank you."