Dominic Carter and Kiera Prusmack in the Front Porch production of “The Mountaintop,” winner of four 2026 Elliot Norton Awards.

Maurice Emmanuel Parent, Front Porch co-founder and producing artistic director

Black-led theater company looks ahead to new decade of Black-centric productions

In October, the Front Porch Arts Collective, Boston’s pioneering, Black-led theater company, begins its 10th season.

The Porch launches its new decade building on the impact it has achieved since 2016, when Dawn Meredith Simmons and Maurice Emmanuel Parent founded the company and led its first decade as co-producing artistic directors. Simmons is now artistic director of the SpeakEasy Stage Company and Parent is the Porch’s producing artistic director.

Parent and Simmons took a vigorously collaborative approach to bringing Black stories to Boston stages.

“Our dream is for the Porch to become one of the largest, longest running, continuously producing Black theater companies in the nation,” Parent said during a phone interview. “It’s in the Porch’s DNA to build collaboratively, and we’ve created something that people both on and off stage enjoy being part of.”

Porch partnerships have influenced the evolution of Greater Boston’s theater scene.

“Now I see more co-productions of the kind that the Porch has been part of from its beginning and continues today,” said Parent. “And Greater Boston stages are presenting more stories about people of color, reflecting the diversity of our community.”

The Porch collaborates with companies of all sizes. In its first years the company was in residence at Central Square Theater in Cambridge. In November, the Porch joined Teatro Chelsea, in residence at the Apollinaire Theatre, to stage readings of a new play, “Cubamor,” at Chelsea Theatre Works and in Roxbury at Hibernian Hall.

This month, ArtsEmerson presents the Porch production of “In Old Age” directed by Simmons. The play is the eighth of nine comprising Mfoniso Udofia’s “Ufot Family Cycle,” a series that local theater companies are presenting in its entirety over two years.

True to its name, which evokes a gathering place welcoming to all, the Porch strives to increase equity, diversity and inclusion in Greater Boston theaters — both onstage and behind-the-scenes. Earning critical acclaim while bringing new talents and stories into the spotlight, the Porch and its co-producing partners have garnered a host of awards along the way.

“When we started, we knew we wanted to pay industry-standard salaries, but we weren’t able to do that solo,” Parent said. “So, we built production models in which our co-producers would support the work.”

The Porch has recently undertaken solo productions.

“We need to produce some plays on our own to hone in on our aesthetic and the stories we want to tell,” said Parent. “Our 2025 production of ‘The Mountaintop’ is a real point of pride.

It was only the second show produced solely by the Porch, and it began my first year as producing artistic director.”

A nominee for seven 2026 Elliot Norton Awards, the Porch production of Katori Hall’s “The Mountaintop” received four, including awards Outstanding Play and Outstanding Director.

Now preparing the Porch to begin a new decade, Parent is leading a strategic planning process that he says has already yielded results.

“We have a refined mission statement: We are a theater company that creates Black-centric theatrical experiences that reckon with the world as it is and that imagine what it could be. And we’ve articulated our core offerings as a theater company: Our ideal season is three shows — a new play, a classic and a musical.”

This ideal guides the Porch’s 10th season.

“Two shows will be produced solely by the Porch,” Parent said. “One is a new play that begins our season, Kelundra Smith’s ‘The Wash.’”

On stage at the Roberts Studio Theatre in the Boston Center for the Arts (Oct. 31 through Nov. 2) and directed by Tasia A. Jones, “The Wash” is inspired by the 1881 Atlanta Washerwomen’s Strike and the Black women whose collective action changed the course of labor history.

In December, the Porch presents its annual Holiday Feast, staged readings of beloved Christmas episodes from Black sitcoms.

In February, the Porch will premiere a Festival of Classic Plays.

“We’ll perform readings from iconic plays that tell Black stories as well as selections from the broader theatrical canon as seen through a Black cultural lens,” said Parent. “I look forward to a conversation with our audiences about which works they’d be interested in seeing staged.”

Dates are to be announced for this two-day event, which is presented in partnership with the Lyric Stage Company of Boston.

“In our anniversary year, we’re going back to Central Square Theater, where we began,” said Parent, who in April will direct a co-production of the musical “Working,” revised in 2018 with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda among others.

Based on Studs Terkel’s landmark book of interviews with American workers in the 1970s, this all-new production will illuminate the daily lives of individuals drawn from Boston’s immigrant workforce through songs and stories.

The season concludes in May at the Modern Theatre with the regional premiere of Haitian-American playwright Phanésia Pharel’s new play “The Waterfall,” to be produced solely by the Porch. Directed by Porch Associate Artistic Director Pascale Florestal, the play explores the relationship between a Haiti-born woman and her American-born daughter.

“We invite audiences to gather around for stories that honor labor, lineage and collective memory,” Parent said. “From Black washerwomen in the 19th century to immigrant workers in Greater Boston, these stories connect us with our dignity and power and our shared humanity.”

ON THE WEB

Learn more at frontporcharts.org