Seema Sueko, an unbiased director who based San Diego’s former Mo’olelo Theater for the Performing Arts earlier than leaving the town in 2013, has been honored this month with the distinguished Alan Schneider Director Award from the Nationwide Theater Communications Group in New York.
The award honors promising mid-career administrators whose achievements have been demonstrated by way of work in particular US areas or territories, however who might not be higher identified or acknowledged nationally. Earlier winners have included Daniel Banks, Mary Adrales, Kimberly Senior and Liesl Tommy.
“At TCG, we have now lengthy admired Seema Sueko’s work,” Teresa Eyring, CEO of TCG, stated in a press release. “From her founding of the Mo’olelo Performing Arts Firm, the place she developed the Inexperienced Theater Selections Toolkit, to her work at Consensus Organizing, to her improvement of the Area Stage Theater Artists Market, Seema has all the time mixed her craft as a director with a transformative imaginative and prescient. of what theater can do and be. She actually fashions TCG’s mission to steer a simply and affluent theatrical ecology, and we’re thrilled to honor her with the Alan Schneider Director Award.”
Sueko and Kim Palma, who left early, launched Mo’olelo in San Diego in 2004, with the purpose of making numerous and thought-provoking performs on subjects that grew to incorporate immigration, college violence, and points associated to Well being. In December 2013, she left to work as Affiliate Creative Director of the Pasadena Playhouse for 2 and a half years after which spent 4 years as Affiliate Creative Director at Area Stage in Washington, DC. Mo’olelo ceased manufacturing in 2015 and formally closed in 2017.
Sueko’s most up-to-date undertaking is “Think about a US With out Racism,” a play she wrote and directed primarily based on interviews she carried out in 2021 with 100 individuals throughout the nation. It premiered in April in Minneapolis.
Locals launch theater incubator
A number of veterans of the San Diego theater business this month launched the Combination Collective, a nationwide theater incubation program that can assist the event of latest performs that broaden ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic and gender illustration.
Combination will work on the performs in Grants Go, Oregon, however all early improvement and dramaturgy might be achieved by way of Zoom and streaming apps, so artists from throughout the nation can take part. There’s additionally a studying part, the place the general public can watch the staged readings broadcast at an annual Combination competition.
The creators of Combination have roots in San Diego. Co-founder Julia Cuppy earned her grasp’s diploma in musical theater from San Diego State and was director of schooling and outreach on the La Jolla Playhouse. She now lives in Oregon. Co-founder Jaese Lecuyer has additionally choreographed and taught in San Diego. And the collective’s manufacturing supervisor, Anthony Zelig, is a longtime native theater designer, producer and advertising and marketing officer who spent 5 years on the Coronado Playhouse earlier than turning into the companies and advertising and marketing supervisor for the San Diego Junior Theater this summer time. previous.
The Collective’s first undertaking is “Exit Proper,” a musical by composer Ian Brandon, lyricist Anne-Marie Thompson, and librettist Matthew Buckley Smith. The artists in residence at Grants Go will happen from July 15 to 22. Brandon is a San Diego-based musical director who has labored on the Previous Globe, Lamb’s Gamers, Diversionary Theater and plenty of different native theater firms. Go to aggregatecollective.com.
The GUMBO theater group from Osaka, Japan received Better of the Fest on the 2022 San Diego Worldwide Fringe Competition.
(SDIFF)
Fringe Winners Introduced
The San Diego Worldwide Fringe Competition, which wrapped up a 10-day run in Balboa Park on June 12, has introduced its record of award-winning acts. These are a few of the winners:
The Gumbo theater group from Osaka, Japan received Better of the Fest and Viewers Favourite awards for his or her present “Are You Lovin’ It.” Phina Pipia received the award for greatest solo efficiency for “Ha Ha Da Vinci”. Brelby Productions received Finest Ensemble for “Luna & Solis.” Paco Erhard “Worse. German. Ever” received the Critic’s Decide award. BJ Robinson’s “Pandemusical Diaries” received Artist’s Decide. “Yeah, no, possibly, so” by Catherine Barnes received Spirit of the Fringe.
Wildsong plans ‘Jekyll & Hyde’
Wildsong Productions, a brand new San Diego nonprofit group theater devoted to creating the humanities accessible to all, introduced plans to current Frank Wildhorn’s musical “Jekyll & Hyde” in a manufacturing opening June 30 at OB Playhouse in Ocean Seaside. Exhibits are on Fridays and Saturdays at eight pm and on Sundays at three pm. Tickets are $25.
Later this summer time, Wildsong will current Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater’s musical “Spring Awakening” from July 22 to August 7. For tickets, go to wildsongproductions.showit.website/#about.
neck writes about theater for the San Diego Union-Tribune. Electronic mail her at pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com.
