SOAPBOX
Written & directed by : Kamara Thomas
Featuring : Megan Bowser, Fiona Dawson, Sarah Dawson, Angel Dozier, Amy Godfrey, Kari Hill, Luna Padilla-Font, Aya Shabu, Funmi Shabu, Nnedinma Umeadi, Joyce Ventimiglia, Sofia Ventimiglia, and Dale Wolf.
Choreography : Aya Shabu
Pictographs / Production Design : Chelsea Avchen & Susie Crooks
Makeup Design : Kamara Thomas, Megan Bowser, Denise Padilla de Font
Inflatable Scenery: Tom Dawson
Costumes : Kamara Thomas, Ann Thaden, Nathan Golub (“Good Luck America” T-shirt design)
Additional Participants: Zoia Cisneros, Jamila Davenport, Ken Rumble
SOAPBOX - opening performance
"Good Luck America" Video, using process work from SOAPBOX.
SOAPBOX was a multi-site public performance that took place throughout downtown Durham (see map) on October 19, 2018.
Process and performance elements were featured in “Good Luck America”, a video that debuted in November 2018.
SOAPBOX was both a stand-alone project, and a process-oriented installment in the multi-disciplinary performance work TULAROSA: AN AMERICAN DREAMTIME.
THANKS to all who made this possible, including Downtown Durham Inc., Awesome Foundation Raleigh-Durham, and the cast, crew and designers who invested all their beautiful creative energies into this production.
Soapbox route through downtown Durham
Artist Statement
SOAPBOX is a group public performance taking place in downtown Durham on October 19, 2018, Third Friday. The work will feature orations by actors standing atop a soapbox, an all-female chorus, and scenic installations. Community processions will take place between oratory performances at public spaces in downtown Durham, including Central Park, Durham Convention Center Plaza, CCB Plaza, and Black Wall Street Gardens.
Text and imagery will zero in on “American Archetypes” as the basis for each oration, presenting a dynamic snapshot from inside the boiling pot of viewpoints in our country and local community.
SOAPBOX will be an engaging, cacophonous, beautiful, pulsating group "organism", a festive and thought-provoking spectacle, where each audience member will see and hear a different message, based upon their own perspective and individual movement. This energetic portrait of the local community’s— and America’s— varying perspectives, is intended to encourage us to listen to one another, and to tolerate and even celebrate our differences during this period of communal change.
SOAPBOX (Durham) was made possible by:
