Dobama closes its season with 'Kin'

Dobama Theatre announces the regional premiere of “Kin” by Bathsheba Doran, directed by Shannon Sindelar. The play runs from April 25 through May 25.

The play spans great distances and many years in the lives of its nine characters, telling the unconventional love story between Anna, an Ivy League poetry scholar, and Sean, an Irish personal trainer—a seemingly unlikely match, yet somehow a perfect one.

Doran’s original approach turns the romantic comedy formula inside out. Instead of focusing on the growing relationship of the two lovers, the audience follows their extended network of family and friends, separated by geography and culture, who gradually find their way together as a unit. “Kin” shows the vast web of connections that makes up a modern community. This intimate, yet epic new play explores familiar material in a completely revolutionary way.

“Kin” received its world premiere in 2011 at Playwrights Horizons in New York City. In addition to writing plays for the stage, Doran has adapted The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith as a feature film for HBO and also wrote the second season of Martin Scorcese’s HBO series "Boardwalk Empire." Her other stage plays include “Ben and the Magic Paintbrush,” “Nest” and “Until Morning.”

Doran is a recipient of a 2009 Helen Merrill Playwriting Award and three Lecomte du Nouy Lincoln Center Playwriting Awards. She is a Cherry Lane Mentor Project Fellow and a Susan Smith Blackburn Award finalist. Doran's work has been developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, the O'Neill Theatre Center, Lincoln Center, Sundance Theatre Lab, Almeida Theater and Playwright's Horizons, among others.

Doran grew up in London and moved to the United States on a Fulbright Scholarship in 2000. She is currently under commission from Atlantic Theater and Playwright's Horizons in New York City.

Shannon Sindelar is a director and theater producer based in New York. Her work has been seen at P.S. 122, Incubator Arts Project, Bushwick Starr and the Prelude Festival. She was recently named producing artistic director of the Brooklyn-based company Brave New World Repertory Theatre. Prior to that, she served as the co-artistic director of the cross-media performance group 31 Down, directing the company’s productions of “Here at Home,” “Red over Red” and “Universal Robots.” Other directing credits include Jason Grote’s “A Christmas Carol” and the New York premiere of Tennessee Williams’ “The Remarkable Rooming House of Mme. Lemonde.”

Early in her career, Sindelar was co-director of Dobama’s Night Kitchen program and also served as a production assistant for Cleveland Play House’s 2003–04 season. She served for four years as managing and programming director for the Ontological-Hysteric Theater in New York City. Under Sindelar’s direction, the Ontological’s Incubator program for independent artists garnered an Obie grant and recently transitioned into its own organization, where she served as its first producing director. She is on the curatorial staff for the new organization, the Incubator Arts Project, and produces its annual Other Forces Festival.

Performances of “Kin” 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 than five minutes before curtain), the preview performance on Thursday, April 24, and the "pay-as-you-can" performance on Sunday, April 27.