Theatre for Us
No Dream Deferred Theatre has been presenting equitable and inclusive theatre in New Orleans since 2016. Find out about some of our past work!
TAKING A LOOK BACK
DRAPETOMANIA:
A NEGRO
CAROL
Confronted with the devastating reality of police brutality and institutionalized racism, interracial couple Maggie (white) and Wayne (black) must face what it means to raise a black child in an ever-evolving and tumultuous global landscape. Internal and relational battles arise when the ghosts of L.D Barkley, Anna J. Cooper, and John Brown recruit Wayne to become a modern-day African-American civil rights leader while bigoted and bitter Samuel Cartwright desperately fights for the reinstatement of chattel slavery.
As the chaos of this age-old struggle ensues, the characters are suddenly challenged with their own fictionality, begging the question: exactly who and what has the power to control and resist?
Written by M.D Schaffer
Directed by David Kote
WHERE
THE SUGA STILL
SWEET
Set in a small southern town, in the middle of a dead sugarcane field is a patch that is still vibrant and alive. Where the sugarcane is still sweet is where SONDELO is buried, and it is how his best friend RUNNA can always find him. This play follows RUNNA in reality, but also through his mind and thoughts as SONDELO’s murder has left RUNNA unable to speak and stunted in his development. RUNNA is only able to speak to SONDELO and the audience who can hear his thoughts as he explains how he maneuvers through his silent world turning all of his disabilities into super powers.
Though RUNNA is a superhero in his own mind, this play questions who can save or heal him from the traumas he’s facing as his Great Aunt NANNY MAE and the Rev, VERN-MAYOR push for him to be saved by the Lord through water baptism. It is only through the light of a stranger, INCWADI, an ambiguous character that stumbles into town and church, that the darkness in all of their worlds is illuminated, and healing can begin.
Written by Brian Egland
Directed by Lauren Turner Hines
THE DEFIANCE
OF DANDELIONS
Do not speak too loudly or too little or too much.
Do not get out of the place you’ve been assigned.
Do not give birth to a meadow of dandelions.
Things were good in the time before time and The First Girl in the Whole Entire World was full of Coulds back then until Should arrived. Ever since, The Strongness, The Queerness, The Boisterousness, The Brazenness, The Thickness, and The Softness have been trapped as punishment for failing to behave the way girls should, waiting for a reprieve that feels like it may never come. When the Softness gives birth to a bouquet of dandelions, the girls begin to remember parts of themselves long forgotten and discover that together they have the power to turn a bouquet into a meadow.
Written by Philana Imade Omorotionmwan
Directed by Nicole Brewer
SONS OF LIBERTY
August 2005: 4 years after 9/11, 2 years after the start of the Iraq War and a few days before Hurricane Katrina strikes the South. In the Dixie Region of America there is a small rural country house, where two brothers live, George and Barry Bradley. Two Black men: George is a haunted former soldier injured in combat after a freak accident in Iraq who returned home to a country that did not treat him like a hero. Barry is an overly-ambitious worker at a less-than-impressive job. To George the house they inherited (the one they have lived in since childhood) is his safety. It is his home. To Barry it is something he is ready to grow and move away from.
In the span of a couple of days, the men are forced to come to terms with who they are and what they want, and how much time they have to figure it out. An old friend from George’s past arrives, while Barry brings home a mysterious woman who begins to affect the lives of both brothers. This is a story about family, about manhood and brotherhood, about what it means to be Black in America, the pain we inherit from the pasts and presents of those around us, what it means to be a veteran; it is about love, hate, secrets, the past, the present and the factors that control our future. This is the story of George and Barry, the Sons of Liberty.
Written by Cris Eli Blak
Directed by Dr. John Ray Proctor
One Womxn One Show.
No Dream Deferred’s One Womxn, One Show: In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens is a collection of stories shared in honor of Black Womxn and all of the ways in which we birth, nurture, and grow culture, movements, art, and generations.
This work is most specifically for Black Womxn and those who love us.
This iterative, video/storytelling project is dedicated to the full spectrum of the emotional and lived realities of Black womxn in America. The project aims to cultivate and honor a space where Black Womxn can authentically see and hear each other as well as be seen and heard and take comfort and care in that truth.
In the Red and Brown Water
We are proud to share that our first show of our inaugural season, In The Red and Brown Water, won the Big Easy Award for Best Play. In this unique story, playwright Tarrell Alvin McCraney taps into West African Yoruba mythology as re-envisioned in a theatrical vocabulary that includes American urban, bayou, and pop culture.
"No piece of total theatre could have better lived up to the promise of its title than Tarell Alvin McCraney’s extraordinary In the Red and Brown Water… McCraney is a distinctive voice in American theatre."
-Theatre Critic, Evening Standard Review/ London
In the Red and Brown Water follows a group of siblings and their friends and lovers in San Pere, La. The piece centers on Oya, a teenage girl living in the projects who has a talent for track but declines a college offer to care for her ailing mother. The ensemble cast, led by director Lauren E. Turner, includes India Mack, Martin Bradford, Rahim Glaspy, Rodney Graham, Tenaj Jackson, Stacye Markey, Derrick Toups, Mack Guillory, Ariel Lucious, and Sydney Jack.
Learn More About our Current Season
No Dream Deferred will premiere the original audio play Between the Levee and the Cane Field, written by Ann McQueen, as part of our inaugural AJOYO.