Event Title:

Organization:

  Performing Arts

  Oakland

Start Date:

  7/12/2025

End Date:

  8/10/2025

Start Time:

  8:00 PM

End Time:

  10:00 PM

Event Info: 

  July 12 - August 10 Wed-Thu 7pm, Fri-Sat 8pm, Sun 2pm, with exceptions

Shotgun Players is proud to produce Terry Guest's award-winning play The Magnolia Ballet, running July 12 through August 10 at the Ashby Stage. Directed and choreographed by AeJay Antonis Marquis, this transformative work fuses Southern Gothic storytelling, magical surrealism, and poetic prowess to explore the intersection of Blackness, queerness, and intergenerational relationships to masculinity in the South.

Set beneath the shadow of a magnolia tree, The Ballet follows Z, a young Black queer teen growing up in small-town Georgia. While exploring a deeper love with his white friend, Z experiences a melee of memory, dance, and surrealism as the ghosts of elders past - and all their secrets - roam. With tenderness and unflinching honesty, the play follows a boy's discovery of untold truths amidst a search for love.

"The complexity of masculine love lies at the heart of this work. Fathers, sons, and friends navigate the razor's edge between tenderness and violence, fear and vulnerability," says Director and Choreographer AeJay Antonis Marquis. "Terry Guest knows how to capture the mystery, the sweat on your forehead-the heat. He also writes about people like the men in my family who don't always get a voice on the theatrical stage. He invites us in to see them. He doesn't just make them villains. He cracks them open."

This production promises a visceral, lyrical experience that challenges conventions of masculinity and Southern identity, while celebrating the liberating power of self-expression. The audience is invited to fully immerse themselves in the drama as the seating spills onto the stage, allowing for every emotion to be intimately experienced.

http://www.shotgunplayers.org

Location:

  Shotgun Players at The Ashby Stage

Room:

Address:

  1901 Ashby Avenue

Phone:

  510-841-6500

City:

  Berkeley

State/Province:

  CA