Convergence-continuum kicks off its 2022 season, “Societies in Question” with the Cleveland Premiere of Dog Act, by Liz Duffy Adams.
Post-apocalyptic wilderness was never funnier. Dog Act follow the adventures of Zetta Stone, a traveling performer, and her companion Dog (a young man undergoing a voluntary species demotion) as they wander through the former northeastern United States. Zetta, Dog and their little troupe are on their way to a gig in China, assuming they can find it…and survive the journey. A theatrical, darkly comic variation on the classic doomsday genre, with five original songs.
“A fresh, word-drunk comedy by Liz Duffy Adams. Her deftly experimental yet highly entertaining Dog Act is riddled with Shakespearean resonance, conjuring a post-apocalyptic and post-literate world. Yet, it’s as keenly intelligent as a comedy by language poet Mac Wellman. Dog Act introduces a playwright who has a lot to say, though in a hip, street-smart way – that is, obliquely. …Analyzing Adams’ virtuosic technique tends to deaden its exhilarating effect. Her approach is light, her tone buoyant, and the echoing references to Shakespeare or the Bible or “Peter Pan” come and go in a flash, like lightning. The dialogue doesn’t provoke the listener to struggle to make sense of the various argots; instead it shocks the listener wide awake to enjoy the malleability, the beauty and the strangeness of the words by which we communicate – or don’t.” –Anne Marie Welsh, San Diego Union-Tribune.
Dog Act is directed by David L. Munnell and features actors Denise Astorino, Andrea Belser McCormick, Wesley Allen, Emileo Fernandez, Mike Frye, and Kate Smith, with live music by Jonah Raider-Roth. Scenography by Cory Molner and Scott Zolkowski.
Dog Act opens Friday, March 25 and runs Thu-Sat at 8 p.m. through April 16 at convergence-continuum’s Liminis Theater, 2438 Scranton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113 in the historic Tremont neighborhood. Fri. and Sat. tickets are $23 general admission, $18 for seniors and $18 for students. Tickets and information are available at www.convergence-continuum.org and 216-687-0074.
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BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Playwright: Liz Duffy Adams
Liz Duffy Adams’ play Or, premiered Off Broadway at WP Theater and has been produced over 75 times, including at the Magic Theater, Seattle Rep, and Roundhouse Theatre. She’s a New Dramatists alumna and has received an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award, Women of Achievement Award, Lillian Hellman Award, New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Weston Playhouse Music-Theater Award, Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship, and the Will Glickman Award. Her Artistic Stamp virtual “play” in letters, Wild Thyme, was nominated for a Drama League Award in 2021.
Her work has also been produced or developed at the Alley Theatre, Contemporary American Theater Festival, Humana Festival, Bay Area Theater Festival, Portland Center Stage, Syracuse Stage, New Georges, Clubbed Thumb, Cutting Ball, Shotgun Players, Greater Boston Stage Company, and Crowded Fire, among others. Other plays include Born with Teeth; The Salonnières; Dear Alien; Wonders of the Invisible World; Buccaneers; Wet or, Isabella the Pirate Queen Enters the Horse Latitude; The Listener; The Reckless Ruthless Brutal Charge of It or, The Train Play; and One Big Lie.
Publications include Or, in Smith & Kraus’ “Best Plays Of 2010;” Dog Act in “Geek Theater,” Underwords Press 2014; Poodle With Guitar And Dark Glasses in Applause’s “Best American Short Plays 2000-2001;” and several plays in acting editions by Playscripts, Inc. and Dramatists Play Service. Adams’ portrait appears in Sally Davies’ collection, New Yorkers (Ammonite Press 2021).
Adams has an MFA from Yale School of Drama and a BFA from New York University, and was the 2012–2013 Briggs-Copeland Visiting Lecturer in Playwriting at Harvard University. She has dual Irish and American citizenship, and lives in New York City on land that once belonged to the Lanape, and in Western Mass on unceded Pocumtuc and Nipmuc land.
The Play: Dog Act
Published and licensed by Playscripts, Inc.; for acting editions and production rights, click here. Also published in the Underwords Press anthology, “Geek Theater.”
Premiered by Shotgun Players with the Playwrights Foundation, San Francisco 2004. It’s been produced some 25 times since including at Convergence-Continuum, Cleveland, 2022; Main Street Theater, Houston, 2012 and 2022 (revival); Theatre on Fire, Charlestown MA, 2016; Winnipeg Fringe Festival, 2013; Flux Theater Ensemble, NYC, 2011; Moxie Theater, San Diego, 2005 and 2009 (revival). University productions at Mississippi State, Arizona State, SUNY Orange, University of Denver, Fordham University, and others.
Workshopped at Bay Area Playwrights Festival and Portland Stage Company’s Little Festival of the Unexpected; developed at WP Theater Playwrights Lab. Winner of the Will Glickman Award for Best New Play.convergence-continuums production will be the plays Cleveland premiere.
The Company: convergence-continuum
The company’s season runs from February (during which we stage the NEOMFA Playwrights Festival) through December.
The company’s artistic home since 2002 is the Liminis Theater, an intimate, versatile, storefront performance space, with maximum seating of 40-50 depending on the reconfiguration for each production. The company produces alternative/experimental theatre work by living playwrights, and completely transforms the Liminis for each show, immersing audiences into the world of the play in up-close-and-personal productions. The company seeks to create a core ensemble that continues to work together over the long term in exploring and developing its artistic voice, and performance and production practices to create up-close, environmentally staged productions that challenge the status quo and extend the boundaries of theatre.
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