DQT Presents…
DQT Presents…(DQTP) is a new play development and presentation program. The participating play is performed as a staged reading for the public, providing the playwright the opportunity to learn more about their play from seeing and hearing it in front of a live, paying audience.
DQTP plays are often chosen from plays that have already participated in one of our other new play development programs (American Woman, Classics in Color, and PlayTime) and after a considered process informed by DQT’s core values of equity, community, good faith, and artistry.
Participating playwrights are provided collaborators (i.e., director, actors, stage manager) and supported by our staff through 2 rehearsals and 2 public readings at a local venue.
This is for playwrights who already have a full draft of their play or solo show.
Plays developed in this program include:
Sugarhill by Kyra Davis
Eras(h)er Face by Ashley Lauren Rogers
La Esperanza by Raquel Almazan
Riding the Bear by Carmen Rivera
El Bacalao: The Catfish Man by Desi Moreno-Penson
They Used to Grow Avocados Here by Adrienne C Gomez
SugarHill
March 24 & 25, 2025 (7PM)
Playwrights Horizons Downtown/Robert Moss Theatre
440 Lafayette St, Third Floor, New York, NY 10003
Kyra Davis, playwright
Eras(h)er Face
December 16 & 17, 2025 (7PM)
The Siggy Theatre/The Flea Theatre
20 Thomas Street, NYC
Ashley Lauren Rogers, Playwright
A reading of a solo show about a Trans individual, the relationship between goth and queer cultures, and the erasure of Trans narratives and histories. Eras(h)er Face was developed in last season’s American Woman program and will be presented this season under the banner of DQT Presents…, our new works/public engagement program.
La Esperanza (The Hopefulness)
May 9 (3PM & 7PM) & May 10 (7PM), 2024
The Siggy Theatre/The Flea Theatre
20 Thomas Street, NYC
Raquel Almazan, Playwright
LA ESPERANZA (THE HOPEFULNESS), an important new play by award winning playwright Raquel Almazan.
Anna and Jaqueline, sister sex workers in the Dominican Republic, are stowaways in the hold of a cargo ship headed for France. While trapped in a box, scenes from their past desperately emerge, and when these memories take a dark turn, the lines between the real and the imaginary blur, family secrets are revealed, and Anna and Jaqueline are hurtled toward a future that threatens to be as bleak as their past.
The exciting new play is directed by Gineiris Garcia, featuring Maria Isabella Rojas, Merlixse Ventura, and original music by Dilson Hernandez.
El Bacalao: The Catfish Man
May 5th (7PM) & May 6th (2PM)
The Siggy Theatre/The Flea Theatre
20 Thomas Street, NYC
Desi Moreno-Penson, Playwright
They Used to Grow Avocados Here
August 2nd (7PM)
The Great Room/ A.R.T. New York's Brooklyn Space
138 South Oxford Street Brooklyn, NY 11217
Adrienne Gomez, Playwright
In the face of absent parents and adult manipulation, three young Black girls navigate saving their lives and discover they have autonomy. SugarHill is a stunning exploration of both southern Black sisterhood and adultification bias.
Loosely based on Euripides' THE BACCHAE, and taking place in the small backwater town of Thebes, Florida, EL BACALAO: The Catfish Man, tells the story of a dysfunctional, cantankerous Cuban family on the verge of losing everything. There's a storm coming; a restaurant is closed, a young girl is dead. And an indigenous Yoruban demigod is hell bent on vengeance.
The Montez family is hosting their annual Easter egg hunt, a tradition that has never failed to bring them strain as well as togetherness. But when this year’s hunt yields Ofelia’s last will and testament; moreover, her plan to leave the house to herself - instead of her son Hector, daughter Esmeralda, or granddaughter Sandy - the shit not only hits the proverbial fan, it knocks it out cold. Ms Gomez’s domestic drama, both unpacks the complexity of the human condition and delivers the same magic of discovery you get from hunting for buried treasure… or an Easter egg.
Riding the Bear
May 12th (7PM) & May 13th (2PM)
The Siggy Theatre/The Flea Theatre
20 Thomas Street, NYC
Carmen Rivera Tirado, Playwright
RIDING THE BEAR takes place on October 19, 1987, the date of the financial crash known as Black Monday. The Harrington Brothers run a family boutique brokerage house. The older brother Rick, a conservative investor, believes in regulation and the younger brother, jerry, a more speculative investor, believes in diversification and unregulated markets. As the severity of the crash sets in, the brothers must decide on how to move their family business into the future, albeit with very contrasting ways of doing business.