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Art as a Tool for Social Change

Dominique Morisseau is an award-winning playwright whose works portray the lives of individuals and communities grappling with economic and social changes, both current and historical.  One of the most widely produced writers in the United States and a 2018 MacArthur Fellow, Morisseau is a powerful storyteller whose examination of character and circumstance is a call for audiences to consider the actions and responsibilities of society more broadly. 

  

Three of Morisseau’s plays will be produced by Cleveland theatres this season:  Skeleton Crew (Dobama Theatre), about the auto industry and workers’ rights in Detroit;  Paradise Blue (Karamu House), dramatizing Detroit’s jazz community in 1949 before gentrification altered the landscape; and  Pipeline (Cleveland Play House), taking on the school-to-prison pipeline and a mother’s struggle to protect her son’s future.  Through the lens of these topical and timely works of art, Morisseau will discuss the importance and impact of art as a tool for social change. 

 

Dominique Morisseau
Playwright; 2018 MacArthur Fellow

Daniel Gray Kontar

Executive Artistic Director, Twelve Literary Arts Inc. 

Laura Kepley
Artistic Director, Cleveland Play House

Daniel Gray Kontar
Executive Artistic Director, Twelve Literary Arts Inc

Dan Moulthrop
CEO, The City Club of Cleveland  

 

Natalia Garcia is a digital producer for the education team at Ideastream Public Media.