The Big Five … Savannah Dacosta & Marcus Roberts, The Dream Role Society

Tell readers a bit about yourselves and how you met.

Back in 2020, we’d been connected virtually and maintained a long-distance friendship over a couple of years. It wasn’t until about a year into it that we’d realized we grew up in the same town! Marcus was in New Orleans at the time, while I was still in Palm Coast. As life (+ the distance) would have it, we slowly started to naturally part ways until somehow running into each other at auditions for the Flagler Playhouse’s production of Oliver! After being cast opposite each other as Nancy and Fagin, we soon realized we’d get to build a relationship both on and off-stage. 🙂

Starting this collaborative project is a huge deal. Why did you want to start it and what void will it help fill in our community?

We wanted to create The Dream Role Society as a space where getting to explore stories, characters, ideas, and questions was purely invitational, collaborative, and encouraging— not bound by a million and a half faux contingencies. All too often we see restrictions placed upon the opportunity to explore this art form based on criteria that holds no place for elements of drive, passion, curiosity, or ambition. The world of theatre is cluttered with approaches of “art for profit” and “shows that sell.” We’re constantly watching accessibility into these artistic and creative avenues fall on a basis of things like physical appearance, credits on a resume, and social reputability, as well as a colossal lack in subjectivity for artificial “correctness” when it comes to looking at a script. We don’t want you for your resume or high belt (although we’d love to welcome them!), but we’re so happy to have you “just because.”

It can be daunting to follow your dreams especially when it involves being front and center on stage. How will The Dream Role Society help talented people find their voices and places?

Everybody we meet has such a beautiful and unique voice they’ve gotten to explore and create for themselves. A keynote goal of what we hope to develop toward is the idea that, after establishing some foundational roots, we’ll be able to have people pitch their dream role (whether on- or off-stage). Essentially, instead of directly auditioning for a show in a season, they’d be able to audition the show itself for a season spot and allow us the opportunity to help build the world around it & bring it to life.

You have a production coming up this fall. What’s going on with that and where will it be staged? 

We do! We’re wildly thrilled to introduce The Dream Role Society with an inaugural production of Rajiv Joseph’s contemporary play, Gruesome Playground Injuries. As soon as we read this script, we immediately fell in love with it & knew it was the perfect production to meet our new audience with. We decided to begin with a two-person play, along with three other production team members, to start small and show proof of product. We don’t want to leave any guessing room open for community members to gamble with when it comes to working with us in the future. We’re incredibly excited to share the story we’ve been able to build from the ground up, and we’re confident we can only go up as we expand to larger shows.

It’s definitely more than your average two-person play. We’ll get to share the stories of Doug & Kayleen across 30 years of both separate but very corresponding lives. As they continue to intersect at seemingly uncanny points in time, you’ll get to explore with us why that might be, if anything should be done about it, and who might actually be saving who. Joseph leaves a personal introductory note to the reader imploring the creative team to let the audience into these intense passages of time with various tactics indicated in the script. We’ll be presenting this on the Harris Theater stage at Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach, and this will be on the evenings of Friday and Saturday, September 1st + 2nd. We’re hoping to make tickets available online through our social media by early August!

If people want to get involved or donate/support your efforts, how can they do so? 

There’s absolutely always a need to be filled. Definitely keep up with our social media, as we really prioritize staying consistently active on both Facebook and Instagram! You can find us on both @thedreamrolesociety, and we can also be reached by email at thedreamrolesociety@gmail.com.