Jul 29

Won’t Nobody Know What You Want Unless You Tell Them: “The Meeting Tree”

Beyoncé Martinez and Rachel Hall. Photo by Annielly Camargo.

Presented by Company One in collaboration with Front Porch Arts Collective
and the City of Boston Office of Arts and Culture
A new play by B. Elle Borders
Directed by Summer L. Williams
Dramaturgy by afrikah selah & Ilana M Brownstein
Music by Allyssa Jones

July 18 – August 9, 2025
The Strand Theatre 
543 Columbia Rd
Dorchester, MA 02125

Critique by Kitty Drexel

“Until we know who we are and where we’ve been, we cannot know where we’re going.” 
– B. Elle Borders in “Stories As Conduit: An Interview with The Meeting Tree Playwright B. Elle Borders” by afrikah selah.  

DORCHESTER, Mass. — Elle Borders’ The Meeting Tree is a collaboration between Company One and the Front Porch Arts Collective. These two companies have such similar missions of community building that this joint production is bound to succeed. The play runs through August 9 at Dorchester’s Strand Theatre. 

The Meeting Tree tells the story of Black lawyer Sofia Langton (Anjie Parker, is here to kick ass and take names. She’s all out of names.), who describes herself as pregnant, haunted, and feeling crazy enough to disrupt the peace of Alison Browning (Sarah Elizabeth Bedard), a white environmentalist currently occupying the Alabama farm where Sofia’s ancestors were once enslaved. Sofia is determined to find proof that the farm was left to her grandmother, Dixie Mae Montclair (Beyoncé Martinez), and to mend the wound that fractured her family tree before Sofia brings her unborn baby into the world.  Continue reading

Jul 15

Gold, Acrylic, Altar Work, Prayer, Selena & Janelle Monáe: “HOOPS”

Presented by Company One Theatre in partnership with Boston Playwrights’ Theatre and the City of Boston’s Office of Arts and Culture
By Eliana Pipes
Adapted from The HOOPS Project by Nicole Acosta 
Directed by Tonasia Jones
Dramaturgy by afrikah selah
Compositions by Brandie Blaze
Choreography by Jenny Oliver 
Featuring: Brandie Blaze, Elijah Brown, Albamarina Nahar, Tiffany Santiago, Kaili Y Turner, Karimah Williams, Beyonce Martinez (swing)

July 12 – August 10, 2024
The Strand Theatre
543 Columbia Road
Dorchester, MA

Approximate run time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
This production includes explicit language.

Critique by Kitty Drexel

DORCHESTER, Mass. — Hoops is adapted from The HOOPS Project by Nicole Acosta in 2019. It was created when Acosta asked fellow members of the art collective LUNA, “What do hoop earrings mean to you?” Their answers were accompanied by photos of the members wearing their own hoop earrings. 

Playwright Eliana Pipes adapted stories from The HOOPS Project for the stage. Company One presents HOOPS at the Strand Theatre in Dorchester through August 10. It has also played in Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York. Continue reading

Jul 17

Every Story is a Galaxy of Stars: “The Boy Who Kissed The Sky”

Presented by Company One Theatre in partnership with the City of Boston’s Office of Arts and Culture
By Idris Goodwin
Music by Divinity Roxx and Eugene H. Russell IV
Directed by Summer L. Williams
Music directed by David Freeman Coleman
Choreography by Victoria Lynn Awkward
Dramaturgy by afrikah selah

The Strand Theatre
543 Columbia Rd
Boston, MA 02125

Critique by Kitty Drexel

BOSTON, Mass. — The cast of The Boy Who Kissed the Sky performed admirably on Saturday evening despite technical difficulties and intense heat. The beloved Strand Theatre is old and, despite its renovations, failed under the extreme heat. The actors and band met the moment with indomitable will and aplomb. 

Idris Goodwin’s The Boy Who Kissed the Sky is a fantasy on the childhood of Jimi Hendrix in music, dance, and color. A Boy (Errol Service Jr.) lives with his father (Cedric Lilly) in Seattle. The Boy imagines universes across a history of rock music with pencil set to paper as he strums a broom that bleeds corn bristles.

His multidimensional, intergenerational guide and musical conscience is J. Sonic (Martinez Napoleon). Together with the groovy Feedbacks (Yasmeen Duncan, Kiera “Kee” Prusmack, James Turner, and Adriana Alvarez) they witness a world of experiences so the Boy can find his own rock n roll voice.  Continue reading