Cleveland premiere of 'The Aliens' opens at Dobama

Dobama Theatre’s fourth mainstage production this season, and a Cleveland premiere, is “The Aliens” by Annie Baker. The play will run from Jan. 24 through Feb. 23.

The play opens with KJ and Jasper—two aimless 30-somethings—loitering behind a coffee shop in a small town in Vermont. They discuss women and Charles Bukowski (poet, novelist, and short-story writer) while occasionally singing an original song or two. Then Evan, a high school student and loner who works at the coffee shop, arrives to get rid of them. KJ and Jasper decide to teach Evan everything they know. The play, described as a modern-day “Waiting for Godot,” won an Obie Award for Best New American Play. It is a compassionate meditation on art, friendship and loss about a generation of young Americans trying to find their place in the world. 

Playwright Annie Baker grew up in Amherst, Mass. She has been nominated for and has won several awards, including a Best Play/Emerging Playwright nomination for “Body Awareness” and an Obie Award for Best New American Play for “Circle Mirror Transformation.” Her work has been developed and produced at New York Theatre Workshop, Soho Rep, the Orchard Project, Ars Nova, the Cape Cod Theatre Project, the Bay Area Playwrights Festival, and the Sundance Institute Theatre Lab, among others. Baker was also a recipient of a MacDowell Fellowship and commissions from Center Theatre Group and Playwrights Horizons. She has an M.F.A. from Mac Wellman’s playwriting program at Brooklyn College.

Nathan Motta is directing “The Aliens.” Motta, Dobama’s fifth artistic director, worked with Cleveland Play House, Opera Cleveland, Ohio Light Opera, Cain Park, Cleveland Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Mercury Opera Rochester, and Civic Light Opera (Pittsburgh). He is the founding artistic director of the Dobama Emerging Actors Program (DEAP), a summer acting program. He holds a B.F.A. from Carnegie Mellon University and an M.M. from the Eastman School of Music. 

Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons. For a complete schedule, ticket prices, and reservations, call the Dobama Theatre box office at 216-932-3396. Ask about reduced prices for RUSH tickets (as available, no earlier that five minutes before curtain), the preview performance on Jan. 23, and the "pay-as-you-can" performance on Jan. 26.