'Our Town' To Debut At Dobama In Cleveland Heights

CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OH - From Dobama Theatre: Dobama Theatre proudly announces the ninth season of the Dobama Emerging Actors Program (DEAP). DEAP is a summer acting intensive for high school students and college undergraduates, featuring technique-based courses paired with a workshop production of a heightened text play. Leighann Delorenzo and Nathan Motta co-direct this year’s production of OUR TOWN, the classic American play by Thornton Wilder.

OUR TOWN is a Pulitzer Prize-winning 1938 play that is a metatheatrical take on the American small town, in which the Stage Manager is the main character, telling story of the fictional town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 through the everyday lives of its citizens. Ultimately, the audience is presented with a tough question: is it possible to appreciate life while living it?

This year’s DEAP Ensemble includes: Rain Birdsell, Cheyenne Carswell, Natalie Friel, Amira Hasan,
Trevon Haywood, Cassie Johnson, Savanna Higginbottom, Michael S. Mankiewicz, Somiya Schirokauer, and De’Aja Wilson.

About the Directors:

Leighann Delorenzo most recently directed Dobama productions of THE REVISIONIST and ON THE GRILL. Previously she appeared as Helena in the Dobama Theatre production of KIN. Leighann is currently the Upper School Theater Director at Laurel School in Shaker Heights, where she teaches technique-based acting classes. Her specialty is heightened texts and voice and movement for the actor. Recent directing credits include Noel Coward's HAY FEVER, Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Federico Garcia Lorca's THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA. Leighann earned an MFA in classical theater performance from The University of South Carolina and completed her graduate program with a professional acting fellowship with The Shakespeare Company in Washington, DC. There she appeared in five productions, sharing the stage with Dixie Carter, Hal Holbrook and Ty Burrell, and also served as a member of the master acting class faculty. Leighann made her Cleveland acting debut in Neil La Bute's THIS IS HOW IT GOES at The Bang and The Clatter in 2009, appeared at Dobama as Theresa in CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION, and played the title role of Sabra in Karen Sunde's HOW HIS BRIDE CAME TO ABRAHAM at none too fragile in Akron, where she was most recently seen in IN A FOREST DARK AND DEEP and was also featured in the world premiere of the critically acclaimed POSSUM DREAMS by Ed Falco, which enjoyed an Off-Broadway engagement. Leighann has served as acting faculty for the Dobama Emerging Actors Program (DEAP) for the past eight seasons.

Nathan Motta is the 5th Artistic Director at Dobama Theatre, where he spurred Dobama's move to become the region's newest Equity Theatre and where he’s directed critically acclaimed productions of AN OCTOROON (Best Director – Cleveland Critics Circle 2016), THE FLICK (Best Director – Cleveland Critics Circle 2017), APPROPRIATE, SHERLOCK HOLMES: THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS, THE FLICK, PETER AND THE STARCATCHER, SUPERIOR DONUTS, A BRIGHT NEW BOISE, THE LYONS, TIME STANDS STILL, THE ALIENS, A CIVIL WAR CHRISTMAS: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL CELEBRATION, MARIE ANTOINETTE and the World Premiere of HOW TO BE A RESPECTABLE JUNKIE. A professional director, conductor and composer/lyricist, Motta has worked with Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Oberlin College, Cleveland State University, John Carroll University, Opera Cleveland, Ohio Light Opera, Cain Park, the Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Mercury Opera Rochester and Civic Light Opera (Pittsburgh). He is the Founding Artistic Director of the Dobama Emerging Actors Program (DEAP), Dobama's elite summer acting program. He has written two original musicals, LITTLE WHITE GLOVES (an adaptation of the movie All I Wanna Do) and MIDSUMMER (based on Shakespeare’s A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM). He holds a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.M. from the Eastman School of Music. Member of Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the national theatrical union that unites, empowers and protects professional stage Directors and Choreographers throughout the United States.

Performance dates/times for OUR TOWN are:
Thurs August 2, 7:30 pm
Fri August 3, 8:00 pm
Sat August 4, 8:00 pm
Sun August 5, 2:30 pm

*Admission is free for OUR TOWN, with general seating. Donations are welcome, so that Dobama may continue offering this enriching program for years to come.
Call 216.932.3396 or visit dobama.org for more information.

Dobama Theatre is generously funded by Cuyahoga County residents through Cuyahoga Arts and Culture. The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this organization with state tax dollars designated toencourage economic growth, educational excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

Dobama Theatre is also generously supported by many individual donors and the following foundations: The Cleveland Foundation, The George Gund Foundation, The Harry K. and Emma R. Fox Charitable Foundation, The Milton and Tamar Maltz Family Foundation, Music and Drama Club, The David and Inez Myers Foundation and the William M. Weiss Foundation.

Dobama Theatre’s mission is to premiere the best contemporary plays by established and emerging
playwrights in professional productions of the highest quality. Through educational and outreach
programming, Dobama Theatre nurtures the development of theatre artists and builds new audiences for the arts while provoking an examination of our contemporary world.

Photo courtesy of Dobama Theatre