Miami New Drama is a

nonprofit A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organisation, also known as a non-business entity, not-for-profit organization, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in co ...

professional theater company located in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which se ...

, Florida, founded in 2014. Since October 2016 it has been the resident theater company and operator of the historic Colony Theatre on Miami Beach. Since its first production in January 2016, the company has produced work by American, Latin American, and international theater artists. Miami New Drama focuses primarily on the development of new plays and musicals, serving as an incubator for new theatrical works. It produces work that is diverse, multicultural, and multilingual with theater artists such as

Moisés Kaufman Moisés Kaufman (born November 21, 1963) is a Venezuelan theater director, filmmaker, playwright, founder of Tectonic Theater Project, based in New York City, and co-founder of Miami New Drama at the Colony Theatre. He was awarded the 2016 Natio ...

Gregory Mosher Gregory Mosher (born 1949) is an American director and producer of stage productions at the Lincoln Center and Goodman Theatres, on and off-Broadway, at the Royal National Theatre, and in the West End. He is also a film director and television di ...

Christopher Renshaw Christopher Renshaw (born 18 March 1952 in Reading) is a British opera and theatre director. He has directed in multiple countries, including musical theatre in London's West End. Biography In 2001, Renshaw directed ''Taboo'', a musical with th ...

, and

Aurin Squire Aurin Squire is an African- American playwright, screenwriter, and reporter. He has written numerous plays, while his reporting has appeared in The New Republic, Talking Points Memo, ''Chicago Tribune'', ''Miami Herald'', and ''ESPN'', among other ...

History

Miami New Drama was co-founded in 2014 by Venezuelan-born playwrights and directors Michel Hausmann and

. They moved from New York City to Miami to start Miami New Drama, with the intent of creating a regional theater that reflected its community, representing cross-cultural themes, and building cultural and political understanding. Hausmann serves as the company's artistic director. The company's debut production, ''The

Golem A golem ( ; he, , gōlem) is an animated, anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is entirely created from inanimate matter (usually clay or mud). The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century ...

of Havana'', directed and with a book written by Hausmann, and music and lyrics by Salomon Lerner and Len Schiff, opened at the Colony Theatre in Miami Beach in January 2016. Hausmann, Lerner, and Shiff, along with their friends and families and the group's board, produced the play with their own money, at a substantial risk. Following the successful production, Miami New Drama took over operations of the Colony Theatre on October 1, 2016. As of May 2016, 20% of the non-profit company's funding came from

and

Miami-Dade County Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...

, and 80% came from individual donors. By December 2017, Miami New Drama had received two Knights Arts Challenge grants from the

John S. and James L. Knight Foundation The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, also known as the Knight Foundation, is an American non-profit foundation that provides grants for journalism, communities, and the arts. The organization was founded as the Knight Memorial Education ...

. One of the grants was in support of the company's multilingual production of

Thornton Wilder Thornton Niven Wilder (April 17, 1897 – December 7, 1975) was an American playwright and novelist. He won three Pulitzer Prizes — for the novel ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' and for the plays '' Our Town'' and ''The Skin of Our Teeth'' — ...

's ''

Our Town ''Our Town'' is a 1938 metatheatrical three-act play by American playwright Thornton Wilder which won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The play tells the story of the fictional American small town of Grover's Corners between 1901 and 1913 throu ...

'', and it is the first theater company to be authorized by the Thornton Wilder Estate to make changes to Wilder's script. Miami New Drama was also a Knight New Work Miami 2018 winner. On January 23, 2019,

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educati ...

broadcast the company's production of Kemp Powers' fact-based 2013 play, ''

One Night in Miami ''One Night in Miami'' is the debut play written by Kemp Powers, first performed in 2013. It is a fictional account of the real night of February 25, 1964. It pinpoints a pivotal moment in the lives of four, still nascent, Black American icons ...

''."''One Night in Miami'' at the Colony Theatre"

. January 23, 2019. Retrieved September 17, 2020. In June 2019, the company co-hosted the

Theatre Communications Group Theatre Communications Group (TCG) is a non-profit service organization headquartered in New York City that promotes professional non-profit theatre in the United States. The organization also publishes ''American Theatre'' magazine and ''ARTSEA ...

's 29th National Conference, attended by theater professionals from across the nation. Since its debut production, as of 2020 the company has produced over a dozen plays at the Colony Theatre, nine of them new works. In the span of its first three active years, Miami New Drama went from being a startup company to a theater company with a budget of nearly $3 million per year.

Selected productions

''The Golem of Havana'' (2016)

''The Golem of Havana'' is a musical with music by Salomon Lerner, lyrics by Len Schiff, and a book by Miami New Drama's artistic director, Michel Hausmann, who also directed the company's production. The musical is centered around a Jewish-Hungarian family and their plight in the midst of the Cuban revolution. The play ran at the Colony Theatre from January 14, 2016 to February 14, 2016 after productions at La MaMa in 2013 and Barrington Stage Company in 2014.

''Terror'' (2017)

The American premiere of

Ferdinand Von Schirach Ferdinand von Schirach (born 12 May 1964) is a German lawyer and writer. He published his first short stories at the age of forty-five. Shortly thereafter he became one of Germany's most successful authors. His books, which have been translated i ...

's ''Terror'' was directed by

. The play puts a military pilot on trial for shooting down a hijacked plane headed towards a large group of people, and asks the audience to act as the jurors on the case.

''Our Town'' (2017)

The company's multilingual adaptation of

's ''

'' was directed by Hausmann. In this re-imagination of the play, still set in New England, the characters speak English, Spanish, and Creole. Translations were written by

Nilo Cruz Nilo Cruz is a Cuban-American playwright and pedagogue. With his award of the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play '' Anna in the Tropics'', he became the second Latino so honored, after Nicholas Dante. Biography Early years Cruz was bor ...

and Jeff Augustin.

''The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity'' (2018)

'' The Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity'', written by Kristoffer Diaz, was a 2010

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had ma ...

finalist for Drama. It was produced by Miami New Drama in collaboration with Asolo Repertory Theatre. Set in the pro-wrestling world, the play tackles issues of race, politics, and the American Dream.

''Queen of Basel'' (2018)

''Queen of Basel'' is a new play commissioned by the company and written by Hilary Bettis; it was first directed by Hausmann. It is a feminist and bi-lingual re-imagining of

August Strindberg Johan August Strindberg (, ; 22 January 184914 May 1912) was a Swedish playwright, novelist, poet, essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with t ...

's ''

Miss Julie ''Miss Julie'' ( sv, Fröken Julie) is a naturalistic play written in 1888 by August Strindberg. It is set on Midsummer's Eve and the following morning, which is Midsummer and the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist. The setting is an estate of ...

'' set during Miami's

Art Basel Art Basel is a for-profit, privately owned and managed, international art fair staged annually in Basel, Switzerland; Miami Beach; Hong Kong and from 2022, Paris. Art Basel works in collaboration with the host city's local institutions to help ...

in a luxurious South Beach hotel. Hausmann seated 100 audience members on stage to provide an immersive feel for theatergoers. The new drama sparked interest from a variety of venues, and it was subsequently produced at the

Studio Theatre A black box theater is a simple performance space, typically a square room with black walls and a flat floor. The simplicity of the space allows it to be used to create a variety of configurations of stage and audience interaction. The black ...

in Washington, D.C. The leading actress in the Miami New Drama production, Betsy Graver, won the 2018 Carbonell Award for Best Actress in a Play.

''The Album'' (2018)

''The Album'', presented by Tectonic Theater Project, was written and first directed by

. The play focuses on an album that was delivered to the Holocaust Museum in 2008, with pictures of different Nazi officers, secretaries, and their families on vacation during World War II. The play is a documentary theater piece that uses the album itself, interviews, and personal accounts as source material.

''Puras cosas maravillosas'' (2018)

''Puras cosas maravillosas'', a Spanish adaptation of Duncan Macmillan's ''Every Brilliant Thing'', was directed by Hausmann and starred Erika de la Vega. This immersive one-woman show followed a young girl's journey into adulthood, marked by her mother's depression and suicide attempts.

''One Night in Miami'' (2018)

'', written by Kemp Powers, was directed for Miami New Drama by

Carl Cofield Carl Cofield is an American theatre director and actor. Education and influences Cofield was in the first class of the New World School of the Arts in Miami. He studied for one summer at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and earned a BFA in Acting f ...

. The play takes place on the night that

Cassius Clay Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed "The Greatest", he is regarded as one of the most significant sports figures of the 20th century, a ...

won the World Heavyweight Championship, and since he could not celebrate on Miami Beach due to the segregation laws of the time, he heads to Overtown, Miami, with his colleagues:

Malcolm X Malcolm X (born Malcolm Little, later Malik el-Shabazz; May 19, 1925 – February 21, 1965) was an American Muslim minister and human rights activist who was a prominent figure during the civil rights movement. A spokesman for the Nation of Is ...

Sam Cooke Samuel Cook (January 22, 1931 – December 11, 1964), known professionally as Sam Cooke, was an American singer and songwriter. Considered to be a pioneer and one of the most influential soul artists of all time, Cooke is commonly referred ...

, and

Jim Brown James Nathaniel Brown (born February 17, 1936) is a former American football player, sports analyst and actor. He played as a fullback for the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL) from 1957 through 1965. Considered to be one ...

. The play imagines what that night in the Hampton House Motel in Overtown might have looked like. On January 23, 2019, PBS broadcast the production. The play won the 2018 Carbonell Award for Best Scenic Design (Play or Musical).

''Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy'' (2019)

''Confessions of a Cocaine Cowboy'' is a new play based on the documentaries '' Cocaine Cowboys'' and '' Cocaine Cowboys 2'' by Billy Corben. This play is a documentary theater piece co-written by Billy Corben and

, using text from depositions, newspaper articles, and other documents from the time. It was directed by Hausmann. The play focuses on the way the city of Miami was shaped by the 1980s illegal drug trade.

''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' (2019)

Based on

-winning novel of the same name, ''The Bridge of San Luis Rey'' was adapted for the stage and directed for Miami New Drama by David Greenspan, who also appeared in the play. It follows five travelers who lose their life on a bridge in colonial Peru.

''A Wonderful World'' (2020)

''A Wonderful World'' is a new musical with a book by

and music by

Louis Armstrong Louis Daniel Armstrong (August 4, 1901 – July 6, 1971), nicknamed "Satchmo", "Satch", and "Pops", was an American trumpeter and Singing, vocalist. He was among the most influential figures in jazz. His career spanned five decades and se ...

, arranged by Annastasia Victory and Michael O. Mitchell. It was directed for Miami New Drama by

. The story follows Armstrong through his life, from his beginnings in New Orleans to his rise to international stardom and eventual role during the Civil Rights era. it is told from the perspective of Armstrong's four wives.

References

External links

Official website
{{Authority control 2014 establishments in Florida Theatre companies Theatre companies in the United States Theatre companies in Florida