Performances created by a diverse group of artists will explore race, class, ethnicity, culture, gender, sexuality and childhood illness.
The Process Series announced its 2022-23 season, “Reckoning and Reconciliation,” with performances that wrestle with difficult questions about survival and how we might come through such crucibles stronger than we entered.
Now in its 15th season, the Process Series is dedicated to the development of new and significant works in the performing arts. The series features professionally mounted presentations of works in progress. The goal is to illuminate the ways in which artistic ideas take form, examine the creative process and offer audiences a chance to provide feedback critical to the development of a work as it moves forward.
Through innovative new productions, this season will explore questions of race, class, ethnicity, culture and more.
All performances are free and open to the public. They begin at 7:30 p.m. and will be presented at the newly renovated Black Box Theater in Swain Hall unless otherwise indicated.
FALL 2022
“The Heart Hero’s Journey”
Sept. 30-Oct. 1
Ariel Gratch uses Joseph Campbell’s myth of the hero as a guide to tell the story of a family whose child has congenital cyanotic heart disease. Since children with CHD are often referred to as “heart heroes,” this performance explores the implications and possibilities of the term “hero” in this context. This production is sponsored by performance studies in the College of Arts and Sciences’ communication department.
Gratch is an academic and storyteller who enjoys finding new ways of telling stories, be it through audience participation or the incorporation of new media.
“Untitled Elegy Play”
Oct. 12-13
Andrea Stolowitz’s play is an immersive theater experience that explores two years of pandemic life using text from over 40 interviews. As five performers embody 14 interview-based characters separated by time, space and geography, a cascade of stories unfolds.
Stolowitz is an internationally produced playwright and three-time winner of the Oregon Book Award in drama.
“The Sweet Life”
Oct. 28-29
Guillermo Reyes’ new play is about Nadia and her mother Teresa as they spar over the course of five years — from 2016, as Donald Trump is about to get elected, to the Jan. 6 insurrection in 2021. Teresa seeks to inspire her daughter to get an education while fearing the possibility of deportation to Mexico.
Reyes has written, produced and published more than a dozen plays, including “Men on the Verge of a His-Panic Breakdown” (Ovation Award, Los Angeles, and Outer Critics Circle Award, New York) and “Mother Lolita.”
“The Meditation”
Nov. 18-19 (Kenan Rehearsal Hall)
Christina Lai and Ina Liu bring us narratives of Asian American Pacific Islander women, moving from the dichotomous to the complex through music and art. In the wake of recent Asian hate crimes, Liu and Lai examine the stories of these women through the lenses of art and music. “The Meditation” represents a partnership with the Asian American Center and the Process Series.
Lai is a pianist who finds passion in all fields of music teaching and collaboration, seeking to bring diverse repertoire to audiences in local communities.
Liu is a self-taught artist specializing in graphic design and multimedia visual arts.
Spring 2023
“Not In My House”
Feb. 3-4
Alejandro Rodriguez’s work is a contemporary adaptation of Federico Garcia Lorca’s final full-length play, “House of Bernarda Alba.” In Rodriguez’s version, the action is transposed to working-class Miami, and the titular matriarch is a recently exiled Cuban mother of five.
Rodriguez is a writer, director and founder of Alejo Communication, a coaching and consulting company based in Miami and New York City.
“Bench”
Mar. 3-4
Puppeteers Tori Ralston and Tarish Pipkin present a new work about two people randomly coming together, a Black man and a white woman, in late middle age, remembering and relating the stories of their pasts.
Ralston grew up near Narraganset Bay in Rhode Island and received her college degree in psychology from Carolina and her MFA in sculpture from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.
Pipkins, a.k.a. Jeghetto, is a self-taught artist who has been creating art from a very young age.
“LandED”
Mar. 24-25
Aya Shabu’s work tells the story of Aya, a second-generation African American of Bajan descent marked by her grandmother’s colorism, gender norms and prideful notions of Black mobility.
Shabu is a professional dancer, choreographer and artist living in Durham, North Carolina.
“The Story of Us”
Apr. 15-16 (Fedex Global Education Center)
This is an all-star performance of oral histories of LGBTQI alumni in partnership with Carolina Pride Alumni, Southern Oral History Program, Wilson Library and the College’s communication department. It is co-produced by the Carolina Pride Alumni Network.
“Body W/O Borders”
Apr. 21-22
This play by Turkish-German playwright Özlem Özgül Dündar, translated by Henning Bochert, deals with the stories of migrant Turkish workers who came to Germany in the 1950s and ’60s.
Dündar was born in 1983 in Solingen Germany and writes poetry, prose and text for the stage.
Bochert works as a writer, lecturer, dramaturg and translator in Berlin.
Sponsors
The 15th season, based in the communication department, gets support from StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, and is co-sponsored by The College of Arts and Sciences, Institute for the Arts and Humanities, Arts Everywhere, Carolina LatinX Center, the Asian American Center, Carolina Pride Alumni Network and the following College departments: communication, dramatic art, music, art and art history, English and comparative literature, and German and Slavic Languages.
By The Well