Mr. Joy

The Neighborhood Tour

MAY 5 - 19, 2018

• About the Tour
• Locations & Tickets
• Artists
• History
• Partners

Adobuere Ebiama, Actor

Adobuere Ebiama is a Boston, Massachusetts native trained in contemporary and classical theatre. At age 19 Adobuere began her professional acting career playing Pecola in The Bluest Eye by Lydia Diamond (IRNE Award Nomination, Best Actress) She has since done a range of roles from plays by Danai Gurira to Shakespeare.

Her recent stage credits include Daniel Beaty’s solo performer show Mr. Joy, produced by ArtsEmerson and her performance in The Convert which won her an IRNE (Independent Reviewers' of New England) Award for Best Actress & an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Production. Adobuere can be seen playing the lead role of Maité in 'The Pineapple Diaries', a new comedic web series. She also landed a role in Nollywood film Unwanted Guest, which premiered in movie theaters in Lagos, Nigeria.

The driving force for Adobuere's work outside of performing is an optimistic outlook for the future of social justice and women's empowerment.

Daniel Beaty, Playwright

Daniel Beaty is an award-winning actor, singer, writer, and community activist. He is the co-writer and lead actor of the upcoming feature film Chapter & Verse with Loretta Devine and Omari Hardwick about a man who re-integrates into society after eight years in prison. His critically acclaimed plays Through the Night, Emergency , Mr. Joy , Breath & Imagination, and The Tallest Tree in the Forest, have been produced at leading theaters across the nation and venues ranging from Lincoln Center to the White House, garnering numerous awards including an Obie award for writing and performance and three NAACP Theatre Awards. A highly requested keynote speaker, Daniel has spoken throughout the U.S., Europe, and Africa. In 2012, Daniel created I Dream, a nationally recognized social justice initiative that uses the tools of the arts, immersive group exercises, and trauma recovery to support young people to rewrite the story of race and class inequity in America, and create social justice projects to make that new story a reality. I Dream has reached over 2000 young people in three cities across the nation: Watts, CA; Omaha, NE; and Boston, MA. A graduate of Yale University (BA) and American Conservatory Theatre (MFA), Daniel has developed original TV shows for Showtime and Fox/Imagine, and recently completed a documentary about the impact of mass incarceration on children and families called Behind the Glass. A child of an incarcerated parent himself, Daniel’s poem "Knock Knock" is an Internet sensation receiving millions of views and has been made into a children's book, also titled Knock Knock, published by Little Brown Books. Penguin-Random House published his empowerment book Transforming Pain to Power in 2014. DanielBeaty.com

David Dower, Director

David Dower joined ArtsEmerson as director of artistic programs in 2012. He is also co-founder and a contributing editor to HowlRound. Prior, he served as associate artistic director of Arena Stage (Washington, D.C.); and founded and served as artistic director of The Z Space Studio and co-founded and served as co-artistic director of The Z Collective (San Francisco, CA). With ArtsEmerson he directed Guillermo Calderón's Kiss, Daniel Beaty’s Mr. Joy and Breath and Imagination, Melinda Lopez’s Mala, Baritones UnBound, and Maurice Hines’s Tappin’ Through Life. Dower earned the Inclusive Excellence Award (Emerson College); was a Gerbode Fellow (Gerbode Foundation); was named “MVP of Bay Area Theater” (San Francisco Chronicle); and was a Policy Fellow (National Endowment for the Arts). He studied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, American University (Washington, D.C.) and Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. Originally from Westerly, RI, David resides in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood. Twitter: @ddower