Miami’s eclectic theater scene to star in theater conference

On Facebook, when we want to tap into the knowledge and wisdom of others, we send out an appeal to the “hive mind” of our friends, families and acquaintances.

In Miami this week, much of the brainpower of America’s vast regional theater network will be on hand when the Theatre Communications Group (TCG) gathers for its 29th national conference at the InterContinental Hotel downtown. The 840 (and counting) attendees will become a real-world hive mind as they explore some of the most pressing issues the field is facing. Sharing ideas, making connections and getting to experience a snapshot of Miami’s theater scene are all on the agenda.

Founded in 1961, TCG’s aim is to strengthen and promote professional theater in the United States.

Bookended by an educational pre-conference on Tuesday, and a postconference session on the

future of theater for young audiences Saturday, the main conference runs June 5-7 and has a multifaceted focus: audience and community engagement, the evolution of theater journalism and wellness/wellbeing.

Underpinning much of the programming is TCG’s commitment to strengthening equity, diversity and inclusion in theater. Holding the conference in multicultural Miami, with its 69 percent Hispanic majority, dovetails with that facet of TCG’s mission. And it lands here at a time when some artists of color are pushing back against more traditional theater practices and models in Miami-Dade County.

“The conference is grounded in place,” says Devon Berkshire, TCG’s director of conferences and fieldwide learning. “The rate of change in Miami in terms of art is so constant and so rapid. We’re experiencing a huge leadership transition in theater, a major sea change. We can get inspiration from Miami being so adaptable. What Miami looks like is really the future of the country.”

With a host committee co-chaired by Miami New Drama’s co-founder/artistic director Michel Hausmann and Miami Light Project’s executive/artistic director Beth Boone, Miami’s influence on the conference will play out in multiple ways.

Acclaimed HaitianAmerican author Edwidge Danticat, working with Miamian and Obie Award winner Lileana Blain-Cruz to develop a stage piece based on her work for Miami New Drama’s 2020-2021 season, spoke to the conference on Wednesday evening.

Hausmann and Edgar Garcia, artistic director of the Miami Dade Collegebased Teatro Prometeo, are part of a Friday morning panel on multilingualism in American theater.

Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban-American playwright Nilo Cruz, artistic director of Miami’s Arca Images (which does work in Spanish and English, with simultaneous translation into the other language), will lead a Thursday workshop on creating arresting images for the stage.

Miami artists and companies will also be showcased during the conference, with that piece coordinated by Miami Light Project’s Boone.

On Thursday, artist Xavier Cortada, a live performance sample by the Combat Hippies, a show excerpt from Miami New Drama’s “Viva La Parranda!,” and videos of Juggerknot Theatre Company’s “Miami Motel Stories” will introduce conferencegoers to a slice of Miami’s eclectic theater scene.

A dine-around session on colorism in theater will be hosted Thursday evening by actor-singer-playwright and arts administrator Christina Alexander, who will then take participants to the opening-night performance of M Ensemble’s “Sisters” in Liberty City.

Alexander, who was just named an honoree in TCG’s Rising Leaders of Color program, is a seasoned Miami performer who most recently appeared in “The Old Settler” at M Ensemble, the nearly 50year-old black company that is South Florida’s oldest continuously producing professional theater.

After time spent traveling the world on cruise ships as a singer, she has returned to Miami hoping to help make theater here more open and inclusive.

“Miami is more of a salad bowl than a melting pot, and I don’t think it’s time to be nice, anymore,” says Alexander, who notes that the majority of black actors in the region tend to show up on stages between the end of January and the beginning of March — during Black History Month.

“My hope is that in shining more light on what is happening, we’ll move toward the conversation about what do we do about it. … I hope TCG will start the conversation,” she added.

Miami New Drama’s Hausmann has led his company, co-founded with director-playwright and fellow Venezuelan Moisés Kaufman, from a startup in 2016 to a theater with a budget of nearly $3 million per year.

A vocal advocate for telling theatrical stories that speak to a wide range of Miamians — Miami New Drama’s production of Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town,” for example, transformed George’s family into Creole speakers at home and Emily’s into Spanish speakers — Hausmann commissions plays, presents world premieres and produces plays with Miami connections.

One of those plays is “One Night in Miami,” Kemp Powers’ play about the night in 1965 when boxer Cassius Clay (about to become Muhammad Ali), activist Malcolm X, singer Sam Cooke and football great Jim Brown gathered at Miami’s Hampton House motel to talk and party after Clay’s defeat of world heavyweight champ Sonny Liston.

Outspoken by nature — the company’s marquee at the Colony Theatre sometimes offers pithy stances on hot-button issues — Hausmann has lately ignited a sometimes-contentious conversation about just what Miami theater should be.

“I know I can be perceived as cocky and selfrighteous, but this is a minority-majority city, and I don’t think the national conversation has arrived in Miami,” Hausmann says. “We have to integrate diversity into our storytelling and our theater community. It’s the future. You have to lead by example — and it’s economically wise. … Miami is not a white city, anymore.”

ArtburstMiami.com is a nonprofit source of theater, dance, music and performing-arts news.

For more on the TCG national conference, go to TCG.org