Professor Elena Velasco Receives Broadway Recognition

Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation Awards Early Career Achievement

 

MEDIA CONTACT: David Thompson, dlthompson@bowiestate.edu, 301-860-4311

(BOWIE, Md.) – Yet another member of the Bowie State family has received a theater industry honor, this time from the Stage Directors and Choreographers Foundation. Department of Fine and Performing Arts Center Professor Elena Velasco received the Barbara Whitman Award, an unrestricted grant founded by notable Broadway producer Barbara Whitman (Tony Award Winner, A Strange Loop). Last year Myles Frost received Broadway’s Tony Award for his lead role portraying Michael Jackson in MJ: The Musical.

Velasco’s Barbara Whitman Award recognizes an early-career director who is female, non-binary or trans who has exhibited an unique vision in their work. The award includes a $10,000 cash prize.

“This affirmation of my work has renewed and deepened my commitment to performance evolution,” said Velasco. “Being recognized by Barbara Whitman and a committee of Broadway peers from SDCF tells me that the perspective is shifting in our industry as to what theater should be, the significance of where the work is happening, and who is represented onstage. When I direct and choreograph, my goal is to foster deeper relationships between audience and actor to mindfully share real-world experiences on stage through resilient rapture rather than retraumatization.”

Professor Velasco is a theater artist whose work encompasses performance, production, education and activism. Her artistry is driven by her commitment to equality, diversity, inclusion and access punctuated by her work as Artistic Director and Co-founder of Convergence Theatre, a small collective centered on social justice.

Since the reopening of theaters, her creative work has intensified. She began 2023 at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts directing Benjamin Benne’s Alma, a play centered on the intimate narratives of an undocumented mother and her American born child. Following Alma, Professor Velasco simultaneously produced and did aerial choreography for BSU Theatre’s adaptation of Medea while directing and choreographing Mojada, a Chicano adaptation of Medea written by MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Luis Alfaro.

While the original chronicles the demise of a woman betrayed by her husband and country, Alfaro’s play centers on an immigrant family from Mexico trying to make a better life in Los Angeles but faced with unthinkable outcomes and family tragedy. This was the DC premiere of Alfaro’s award winning play which began at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and was produced at NYC’s Public Theatre.

 Professor Velasco is currently in rehearsal for In the Heights at NextStop Theater, a musical that delves into the threats experienced by a Latino community in Washington Heights who respond with resilience and joy. Following this, she will return to her love for theatre for young audiences with Arco Iris, a work commissioned by Virginia-based theater company Arts on the Horizon. Arco Iris, which means “rainbow,” uses color theory to explore how perspective, culture, and gender exist on a spectrum.

“My art and creative process are grounded in directing, choreographing and devising performances that center Latinidad from a place of care and strength, sharing experiences both specific to our community and that also intersect universal themes such as loss, grief, fortitude, and cultural pride,” said Velasco.

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