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Dragon Mama

Virtually OBERON
  • ON DEMAND THRU DEC 10

  • Virtual Event

  • Run Time: 1 hour and 50 minutes

If you are able, your ticket purchase helps support the artists who created this show and helps us continue to make performances available and accessible.

Tickets

$30
Pay-what-you-can option

If you are able, your ticket purchase helps support the artists who created this show and helps us continue to make performances available and accessible.

  • Run Time

    1 hour and 50 minutes

  • Tickets

    $30
    Pay-what-you-can option

Learn more:

This event has passed

An opportunity to see an actor of extraordinary talent, intellect, and heart.

Jared Bowen, GBH

In Porkalob’s plays, storytelling is an act of transformation.

WBUR The ARTery

Stream Dragon Mama on demand anytime through December 10. Purchase a household ticket for access to the event until December 10 at 11:59PM.

How does a Dragon earn her wings? Maria Porkalob, Jr., yearns for a gayer, more POC-filled life than Bremerton, WA, can offer. When presented with an opportunity to make a quick fortune, Maria must make an important decision: leave her debt-ridden mother, four young siblings, and newborn daughter Sara for the wild unknown of Alaska, or stay close to home, family, and intergenerational trauma. Traversing 25 years filled with queer love in a barren land, the 2019 Elliot Norton Award-winning Dragon Mama features ghosts, Filipino gangsters, and a dope ’90s R&B soundtrack.

Virtual Premiere Celebration
Join us at on November 12 at 7PM ET to celebrate the virtual premiere of Dragon Mama! Interact with fellow audience members, enjoy a special live welcome from the creator Sara Porkalob, and toast the Dragon Cycle team with Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus.

Created and Performed by Sara Porkalob
Directed by Andrew Russell

Notable dates

Virtual Premiere Celebration: 11/12 at 7PM ET
The Wellspring: 12/10 at 7PM ET
On Demand Thru: 12/10

Explore

The Wellspring

Join storyteller Sara Porkalob and director Andrew Russell to mine your unique lived experience and engage your imagination through interactive storytelling exercises and engage accessible improv.

Learn More

Go behind the scenes of Sara Porkalob’s next show, Dragon Baby, to experience never-before-heard songs from the show and learn about the creative team’s collaborative process.

Learn More

Credits

Creator & Performer

Sara Porkalob

Sara Porkalob

Creator & Performer

Sara Porkalob

(she/they) A.R.T.: Dragon Mama (2019 Elliot Norton Awards for Best Original Script, Best Solo Performance); Dragon Lady. Sara Porkalob is an award-winning artist-activist, cultural worker, and creator of the Dragon Cycle, a trilogy of matrilineal musicals about her Filipino American gangster family, with one play for each generation built around a central female protagonist. Dragon Lady premiered at Intiman Theatre and was the recipient of three 2018 Gregory Awards (Outstanding Sound/Music Design, Outstanding Actress in a Musical, Outstanding Musical Production). Dragon Mama premiered at the A.R.T., which has commissioned the third play, Dragon Baby. saraporkalob.com, @sporkalob.

Actors’ Equity Association member

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Director

Andrew Russell

Director

Andrew Russell

Andrew is a writer and director whose work focuses on real-life figures who have changed the world, usually through the form of musical theater. As a director this includes Stu for Silverton, a new musical about America’s first transgender mayor, which will premiere in 2020 at The 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle, and as a writer this includes The Long Game, a new musical about whistleblowing and truth-telling in America through the stories of Dorothy Kilgallen, Jack Ruby, Edward Snowden, and Laura Poitras, and American Bounce, an unconventional musical based on the life of Big Freedia.

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Lighting Design

Amith Chandrashaker

Lighting Design

Amith Chandrashaker

The Lucky Ones (DD Nom., Ars Nova), Blue Ridge (The Atlantic), Boesman and Lena (Signature), Cardinal (2ST), Twelfth Night (The Public), Fairview (Soho Rep), Fire in Dreamland (The Public), Her Requiem (LCT3), Time’s Journey… (PlayCo.), Stuffed (The Westside Theatre), FADE (Primary Stages), [PORTO] (The Bushwick Starr/ The Women’s Project), Quiet, Comfort (Hoi Polloi). Opera: The Flying Dutchman (Houston Grand Opera), Falstaff (Opera Omaha), The Scarlet Letter (Opera Colorado), Abduction from the Seraglio (Atlanta Opera).

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Sound Design

Erin Bednarz

Sound Design

Erin Bednarz

A working performer, producer, dramaturg, DJ, and designer of 10 years, Erin’s off-Broadway, national, and institutional work includes Red Bull Theater, Magic Theatre, Seattle Repertory Theatre, On The Boards, and A Contemporary Theatre Seattle, among others. She has held sound design residencies at University of Washington, Seattle University, and Cornish College of the Arts, and recently became the first female recipient of the Gregory Award in Outstanding Sound Design. She is resident sound designer at Washington Ensemble Theatre and artist liaison with LiveGirls! Theater.

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Production Stage Manager

Kate Hausler

Production Stage Manager

Kate Hausler

A.R.T.: Stage Manager: HEAR WORD! (2018), Dragon Cycle, The Donkey Show; Assistant Stage Manager: HEAR WORD! (2017); Production Assistant: The Night of the Iguana (Sub to James Earl Jones), Fingersmith (and Child Wrangler); Stage Operations: Endlings, Jagged Little Pill, The White Card. Stage Manager/Crew Swing: Blue Man Group Boston. Stage Management Intern: Mystère, Cirque du Soleil. Assistant Stage Manager: Cirque of the Dead2016 and 2017. Education: BFA, Stage and Production Management (Cum Laude) 2017, Emerson College.

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Assistant Director

Michael Rosegrant

Micah Rosegrant

Assistant Director

Michael Rosegrant

Michael A. Rosegrant (any pronouns said with respect) is a theater artist whose work centers stories of identity, family, and history as a way to combat oppression. She has performed her spoken word poetry at various events including A.R.T.’s New Year Celebration and ACI’s Arts Equity Summit. He serves on the steering committee of the API Arts Network, and is studying Theater and Sociology at Boston University. Love to my pamilya.

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Special Thanks

Jennifer Zeyl, Matt Starritt, Mara Elissa Palma, Maile Wong, Theatre Off Jackson, Anna Porkalob, Meme Garcia, Tosten Haugerud