En Garde Arts and Arts Brookfield are offering one-on-one or one-on-two performances at the Winter Garden at Brookfield Place, where audiences wind through a series of 12 rooms in a labyrinth. Using sets, lights, video and sound, the rooms bring the dreams of 12 playwrights to life. Each playwright's personal story is a "timestamp of a historic, once-in-a-generation event that will resound for years to come." Conceived by En Garde Arts Founder and Artistic Director Anne Hamburger, with visual and environment designer Irina Kruzhilina and former Lark Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner, the playwrights featured in A DOZEN DREAMS are Sam Chanse, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Emily Mann, Martyna Majok, Mona Mansour, Rehana Mirza, Ellen McLaughlin, Liza Jessie Peterson, Ren Dara Santiago, Caridad Svich, Lucy Thurber, and Andrea Thome. Singer Kecia Lewis will also be featured in the dream of Emily Mann. At the end of A Dozen Dreams, there is a Room 13, where audiences can share their own dreams.
“When the shutdown happened I began to wonder how this dramatic change to all our lives and the ensuing isolation was affecting us psychologically,” Hamburger says. “If you look at the trajectory of my entire artistic career, I've always been intrigued about how social issues impact our mental health. This is a theme running through BASETRACK Live, Wilderness, Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes) and now A Dozen Dreams. To ask playwrights ‘what are you dreaming about right now’ delves into the psychological impact of the pandemic on our subconscious, as well as our hopes and dreams for our future. These playwrights shared their stories of resilience and imagining a better future, dreams of flying, traveling to faraway places, and grappling with what it means to be an artist now.”