Huntington Theatre Company announced the launch of a new series of short audio plays entitled Dream Boston. Three of the plays in the series are available on Huntington’s website now, and others will be released over coming weeks.
Conceived and commissioned by the Huntington artistic department, the theatre asked Huntington Playwriting Fellow alumni Kirsten Greenidge, Kate Snodgrass, and Brenda Withers, and Huntington Artist-in-Residence Melinda Lopez, to imagine their favorite locations, landmarks, and friends in a future Boston, when people can once again meet and thrive in the city—a vision of a future Boston that is somewhere between dream and reality.
Each play is set at a specific local landmark with one or two characters, and is about six minutes in length. The local landmarks that serve as settings for the plays include Minute Man National Historic Park, MIT’s Great Dome, the Boston Public Library, and the Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial.
“These micro-plays are a response to the moment—to theatres being shut down, and wanting to gather to create art with friends and neighbors in a time when we can’t assemble,” says Huntington artistic staff member Charles Haugland, on behalf of the team. “But in a deeper sense, we want them to be hopeful about our collective future. Hope is a tricky word right now—easy for it to ring false. What we love is that each writer has found a way to write about the promise of one possible future in a way that is contrasted with a deep range of ideas and emotions.”
In order to make the recordings of these audio plays, Huntington Sound Engineer Valentin Frank created a package of sterilized recording equipment to be delivered to each actor with explicit instructions on its use and return. Rehearsals and recordings were accomplished online through Zoom, and directed and produced by Huntington artistic staff members Rebecca Bradshaw, Caley Chase, and Rosalind Bevan, under a SAG-AFTRA collective bargaining agreement. Dramaturgy for the project is a collaboration between Melinda Lopez, J. Sebastián Alberdi, Melory Mirashrafi, and Charles Haugland. The Huntington plans to release additional audio plays by early fall.
The Huntington has previously produced audio projects, including Walt McGough’s “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Emerald Necklace” in partnership with the Emerald Necklace Conservatory for their exhibition Fog x FLO: Fujiko Nakaya on the Emerald Necklace, and a series of more than twenty short plays by Huntington Playwriting Fellows as part of the Emerging America Festival.
Current Dream Boston Plays
“Overture” by Kate Snodgrass and featuring actors Elle Borders and Richard Snee, takes place on the top of MIT’s Great Dome during the Boston Pops concert on July 4, 2024.
“By the Rude Bridge” by Huntington Artist-in-Residence Melinda Lopez and featuring actor Lonnie Farmer, is set by the Concord Bridge at the Minuteman National Historical Park on Patriots’ Day, April 19, 2025.
“McKim” by Brenda Withers and featuring actors Krystal Hernandez and Nael Nacer, takes place in Bates Hall of the Boston Public Library’s McKim Building on January 16, 2023.
“The 54th in ‘22” by Kirsten Greenidge and featuring actors Brandon G. Green and Lyndsay Allyn Cox, is set at the Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial on the edge of Boston Common, in spring of 2022.
The audio plays can be listened to on the Huntington’s website at huntingtontheatre.org/dream-boston or wherever you get your podcasts.
Huntington offers special thanks to the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Boston Pops for the use of their recording of the “1812 Overture.”
The Huntington has long been an anchor cultural institution of Huntington Avenue, the Avenue of the Arts, and will remain so on a permanent basis with plans to convert the Huntington Avenue Theatre into a first-rate, modern venue with expanded services to audiences, artists, and the community. Under the direction of Artistic Director Peter DuBois and Managing Director Michael Maso, the Huntington cultivates, celebrates, and champions theatre as an art form. For more information, visit huntingtontheatre.org.