AT&T Performing Arts Center Announces 2023/2024 Season of The Elevator Project

(DALLAS) – The nonprofit, AT&T Performing Arts Center is pleased to announce the 2023/2024 season of The Elevator Project. The diverse season features theatre, dance, visual arts, music, and multi-media.

Since 2014, this singular initiative has featured the work of small, emerging and historically marginalized arts groups performing on the Center’s stages and spaces in the Dallas Arts District.

A sample of the subjects include a version of The Taming of the Shrew presented as a 1950’s black-and-white television sitcom, a 17th century LGBTQ icon sword fighting and dancing her way across France, and a serio-comedy set in Dallas’ Elm Thicket neighborhood that touches on social unrest and gentrification.

Selected artists and organizations:

Bren Rapp
Emerge Coalition, Inc.
Flamenco Fever
Jamal Mohamed
Plague Mask Players
Prism Movement Theater
Soul Rep Theatre Company
Tejas Dance

“We are thrilled about this new season, and the wide range of genres and presentations Dallas audiences will get the chance to see,” says AT&T Performing Arts Center President & CEO Warren Tranquada. “We are pleased to work so closely with these artists and groups and help give voice to their exciting work in the Dallas Arts District.”

The 2023/2024 season of the Elevator Project will be staged in several venues on the Center’s campus. Dates and venues will be announced at a later date. The Center presents the innovative Elevator Project with support from the City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Elevator Project 2023/2024 Season

Bren Rapp, Executive Producer
MURROW by Joseph Vitale

The words belong to American icon Edward R. Murrow. The events belong to history. The circumstances they can help to change are ours. The regional premiere of a powerful, multimedia, one-man show explores Murrow’s life and work, becoming both a lens to examine where we are now as a nation of media consumers, and a mirror providing reflections of much needed lessons from our modern history.

Emerge Coalition, Inc.
EVERGREEN [to grow]

EVERGREEN [to grow] is a dazzling musical experience through the traditional concert setting that features Caroline Shaw’s The Evergreen into a culturally relevant crisis, thus affecting our everyday lives. This cross-discipline project brings about new collaborative experiences through the artistic and scientific lens, and raises awareness of climate change in the city of Dallas.

Flamenco Fever
Pintura, Poesia y Pasion

Pintura, Poesia y Pasion combines four dynamic art forms – high-quality live music, dancing, the visual art of Rolando Diaz, and the recitation of poetry by Garcia Lorca – into an unforgettable performance. In this sophisticated evening, Diaz will visually capture the vibrant essence of the flamenco arts on canvas by utilizing a lyrical and whimsical play of line and color, while exploring and capturing the parallels of political and social oppression throughout history.

Jamal Mohamed
Mirage
Mirage is a multi-media, multi-cultural, experimental band that combines Arab, African, Indian, jazz and experimental music with Middle Eastern dance and visual art projections. The band features renowned percussionist Jamal Mohamed on percussion and electronics, with daughter Alia Mohamed on theremin, dance and graphic arts, Poovalur Sriji on Indian percussion, Derrick Horne on bass, guitars and electronics, and Jonathan Jones on clarinet and EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument).

Plague Mask Players
The Taming of the Shrew – Presented in Living Black & White!

Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew is presented in the style of the 1950’s sitcom I Love Lucy. This retro aesthetic will both amplify the humor and confront the story’s sexism, bringing out a dissonant twist reminiscent of The Twilight Zone. This show is presented in Living Black and White™ courtesy of Pegasus Theatre. With costumes, sets, and full makeup all in gray-scale, we’ll create the illusion of watching a 50’s TV show come to life.

Prism Movement Theater
La Maupin: The French Abomination

La Maupin is a tale of love and tragedy set in 17th century France but wrapped up in a high-octane Punk Rock meets Vanity Fair package. Based on the true story of Julie D’Aubigny, the bisexual duelist and opera singer was famous for dueling men and wooing their women. Through a beautiful mix of sword fighting and dance, the show details her journey to find happiness as a queer woman way ahead of her time.

Soul Rep Theatre Company
ELM THICKET

Co-Founder and noted Dallas playwright, Anyika McMillan-Herod presents her newest play. The production, a serio-comedy set in 2020 in Dallas’ Elm Thicket community where McMillan-Herod grew up, centers around two middle aged neighbors’ attempt to explore love and friendship while facing a complicated history, world pandemic, social unrest, and neighborhood gentrification.

Tejas Dance
mahAmAyA

Through an evening-length production in Bharatanatyam, one of the classical Indian dance forms, you will leave in a trance-like state from the combination of untethered stomps, intricate expressions, and enchanting stories. With lively spatial patterns and precarious holds, lengthy stillness in stressful bends, and eruptive explosive movements, the dancers present a new way of storytelling. Using a dramatic collection of narratives and athletic movements, Tejas Dance brings you this visually stunning tribute to Indian culture, community, and humanity.

Selection Process:
Elevator Project participants are chosen through a two-tier, peer-review process. The first tier is the five-member Advisory Review Panel. Their selections are then reviewed by the Executive Review Committee.

Advisory Review Panel:

• Avery-Jai Andrews – Arts Mission Oak Cliff, Interim Executive Director; Dancer, Co-founder and Artistic Director of Agora Artists
• Tamitha Curiel – Arts & Culture Advisory Commission Member, Place 5; Film Instructor, Alcuin School International Baccalaureate; Actor
• Denise Lee – Singer, Actor, Director, Cabaret Performer
• Arnold Wayne Jones – Independent arts critic, formerly with Dallas Voice
• Ilknur Ozgur – Artstillery, Founder and Executive & Artistic Director; former Arts & Culture Advisory Commission Member

Executive Review Committee:
• Ella Goode Johnson – Arts & Culture Advisory Commission, Chair
• Martine Elyse Phillipe – City of Dallas Office of Arts & Culture, Director
• Warren Tranquada – AT&T Performing Arts Center, President & CEO

Performance dates, times, and ticket on sales will be announced at a later time. Ticket prices are $29.50. Specially reduced-price parking for Elevator Project patrons is available if also purchased when buying tickets online.

Read more about the new season of The Elevator Project from Dallas Morning News.