Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpeakEasy Stage Company names Dawn Simmons new artistic director

Dawn Simmons is SpeakEasy Stage Company's new artistic director. (Courtesy Nile Scott Studios)
Dawn Simmons is SpeakEasy Stage Company's new artistic director. (Courtesy Nile Scott Studios)

SpeakEasy Stage Company has chosen award-winning Boston theater artist Dawn Simmons as its next artistic director. She begins July 1 as the company starts its 35th season. In a recent interview, she marveled as she introduced herself by this new title.

“I think this is the first time I've said it officially,” she said. “I am tickled pink right now.”

SpeakEasy executive director David Beardsley called Simmons the ideal person to take up their “artistic reins.”

“Dawn understands SpeakEasy,” Beardsley said in a statement. “She embodies our mission, she’s familiar with our audiences, and she has an exciting vision for how to move the company forward at an undeniably challenging time for the theatre sector.”

Simmons has a storied history in the city, co-founding two theater companies: New Exhibition Room in 2008, dedicated to “producing provocative, political and affordable theater events,” and then the Front Porch Art Collective, which soon celebrates its 10th anniversary.

“SpeakEasy is the company whose work aligns best with my work in town. And this comes from a person who has been fortunate enough to find a little piece of self in so many companies,” Simmons said. SpeakEasy’s reputation as an avant garde, boundary-pushing company appealed to her.

Simmons will take over the position from founding artistic director Paul Daigneault, who has served in this role for more than three decades. Daigneault called leading SpeakEasy “the privilege of a lifetime.”

“I’m excited to collaborate on this transitional period with an artist and leader for whom I have such affection and respect,” Daigneault said in a statement. “I am confident Dawn’s exceptional talents will propel the company to even greater heights.”

Simmons leaves the Front Porch Arts Collective in the capable hands of Maurice Emmanuel Parent.

Simmons and Parent co-founded Front Porch together to advance racial equity in Boston through theater. They frequently collaborated with SpeakEasy, co-producing three shows: “Pass Over,” “A Strange Loop,” and most recently “Ain’t No Mo.’ “

Advertisement

​"I couldn't be more thrilled for this next phase in Dawn's career. She's going to a company that has meant a lot to me as an artist,” Parent said in a statement. “Our work together at Front Porch Arts Collective made me a better administrator​ and a better​ collaborator — that will come in handy as our companies continue to collaborate.”

Ultimately, Simmons saw Speakeasy as an opportunity that she couldn’t pass up, especially at this moment in history.

“What are the stories that make us think? What are the stories that make us feel good? Because there's also escapism, right? There's community escapism that is so necessary, just to be able to see worlds outside of our own,” she said.
“How do I make you lean forward? How do I make you sit back? How do I make you hold your breath? She asked.

It’s why she makes theater, she said. To ask audiences to contend with life’s greatest challenges by world-building. Theater has always been about facilitating tough conversations for Simmons.

“I want people to learn and grow. My business is humanity,” she said. “And humanity is tough, right? We love each other. One minute we cannot stand each other.
And so if my mission is to help us all be better or at least understand each other, then I have no other recourse than to keep doing what I'm doing.”

Headshot of Cristela Guerra
Cristela Guerra Senior Arts & Culture Reporter

Cristela Guerra is a senior arts and culture reporter for WBUR.

More…

Advertisement

Advertisement

Listen Live