Non-Fiction Theater
Historical Dramas, Human Rights Theater, NGO & Museum-Based Theater
Traveling the world through its productions, developing events inspired by their content, offering a storehouse of plays to produce while always creating new ones through enriching partnerships.
Historical Dramas
Plays that come out of a place or a history
The Reach of Song
Southern Appalachia
An Appalachian drama, it is also the story of rural America before and after World War Two. So moving, it was named the State Historic Drama of Georgia.
Prayer of America
Monongah, West Virginia
What happens when everyone and everything you’ve known is gone except for the children who need you? The story of immigrant women after America’s deadliest mine disaster.
Jimmy and Billy
Plains, Georgia
As Jimmy Carter rose to be president, his brother Billy rose a beer above his head—again and again. Except it was a lot more complicated than that.
Streets of Gold
Western Pennsylvania Coal Fields
Industrialized America was fueled by the coal beneath the earth and the miners who came from all over the world to create a new day. Their story continues through generations.
Birth of a Spirit
Japan
The play began in the home of a president and traveled to the town in Japan where it most resonated. Carter’s fight against racial prejudice reveals the birth of his spirit.
Home Again
Oregon City, Oregon
America’s great westward expansion created a juggernaut of cultural misunderstanding between pioneer and Native American cultures that this play tries to resolve.
Following Our Fannie
Americus, Georgia
What were once vaudevillians later became circus people. This play reunites the two in telling the story of a historic theater.
The American POW Drama
Andersonville Civil War Stockade
American Ex-Prisoners of War from many conflicts take their stories to the stage in this courageous and moving drama set within the context of wars’ very first prison.
Human Rights Theater
Illuminating the world’s struggles
Stalinka
Bulgaria
Worlds that changed 180-degrees after the fall of Communism struggle to make sense of life and art in the wild, wild west of Eastern Europe circa the late 1990’s.
Birth of a Spirit
Japan
The play began in the home of a president and traveled to the town in Japan where it most resonated. Carter’s fight against racial prejudice reveals the birth of his spirit.
The American POW Drama
Andersonville Civil War Stockade
American Ex-Prisoners of War from many conflicts take their stories to the stage in this courageous and moving drama set within the context of wars’ very first prison.
Transcendence
Plains, Georgia
Likely the only time a playwright was commissioned to work with a president of the United States on a play about his life. This is the Jimmy Carter story.
Searching for Innocence
Cambodia
See through eyes who have seen the unimaginable during the reign of the Khmer Rouge when the world looked away from Cambodia, only to later flood it with good intentions.
NGO & Museum-Based Theater
Helping or articulating a mission
How to Beat Diabetes
Labasa, Fiji
These plays helped diabetics in Fiji overcome the disease. And is a great example of how theater can further the mission of an NGO, especially in the developing world.
Searching for Innocence
Cambodia
See through eyes who have seen the unimaginable during the reign of the Khmer Rouge when the world looked away from Cambodia, only to later flood it with good intentions.
Darkness Lifting
Ghana, Sandtown Baltimore, Fiji, Northern Ireland, and Chiapas Mexico
Habitat for Humanity works in all fifty states and more than eighty countries. This is the story of the people throughout the world who live in their houses.
World Communities believes theater can be especially vital when it is relevant to a place, a mission, a culture or a history. We believe theater shouldn’t be content in being just a production, but can be the impetus for many things, including travel, oral history projects, festivals, symposiums, and special events.
World Communities believes the potential for art exists anywhere, in almost any story, if an artist is involved in telling it. The value of the work is not a function of the apparent significance of the landscape, but rather the skill and insight of the writer who looks upon it. By bringing in professional artists and challenging them to find art in out-of-the-way places and unarticulated narratives, both worlds are made bigger for the benefit of the audience.
World Communities believes in new work. We believe that if all educational and professional theater committed to doing one new play a season, it would innovate American Theater. World Communities’ particular focus is on new work that is non-fiction and all the unique offerings and opportunities that flow from such plays.
World Communities is also interested in collecting stories from playwrights about how they have written and produced various forms of Non-Fiction Theater, and using that repository of information to help inform and encourage other writers in the genre. To add to the archive, please fill in this form.
“I was impressed inspired and moved. I laughed, I cried, I thought it was a great play.”
— Jimmy Carter Press Secretary Jody Powell on the play “Transcendence.”
“Tom’s play ‘Streets of Gold’ is a beauty!”
— New York Governor Mario Cuomo’s keynote address on behalf of “Streets of Gold.”
“This show is so important because it tells us so much about who we really are”
— Penn State Football Coach, Joe Paterno, Keynote Speech on Behalf of “Streets of Gold.”
“Is it possible to feel despondent yet uplifted, depleted yet overflowing, ravenous yet sated, peaceful, yet tumultuous? Yes, and to experience a myriad other emotions as well. Tom DeTitta’s ‘American POW Drama’ has presented the people of Georgia a rare gift to be shared with others.”
— Beth Alston, Editor, the Americus Times Recorder
“One of the best Historical Dramas in the country is presented in north Georgia. ‘Reach of Song,’ Georgia’s Official Historic Drama by Tom DeTitta provides a fascinating glimpse into the life and culture of the Southern Appalachians.”
— Inside Cobb Magazine
“We were utterly blown away by the reading of Tom DeTitta’s play ‘Prayer of America.’ This is a remarkable work.”
— Invited faculty, West Virginia University School of Theater and Dance
“Ninety-eight percent of Habitat for Humanity’s affiliates rated ‘Darkness Lifting’ as excellent.”
— Post-production survey from Habitat’s 25th Anniversary International Celebration
“We were profoundly impressed by the ‘American POW Drama.’ Tom DeTitta did a masterful job putting the production together. God has surely given him a tremendous talent and he is using it to great advantage to benefit everyone who has the privilege of seeing what he has put together.”
— Millard Fuller, Founder of Habitat for Humanity
“‘Following our Fannie’ is structured in a way that incorporates all the silly vaudevillian aspects of the 20th century with modern theater. The play includes comedy routines, song and dance and juggling or acrobatic acts, as well as fire-eating and magic tricks.”
— Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
“An officially good drama! It took two years of talking and listening for Playwright Tom DeTitta to gather together the fragile fragments of everyday life that compose ‘Reach of Song.’ Such real-life ingredients make good theater. You generally have be around forever to become a state’s official something. But after its first season, ‘Reach of Song’ became Georgia’s Official Historic Drama.”
— Southern Living Magazine
“‘Streets of Gold’ was very successful in dramatizing several major themes in American history. I discussed the play with Governor and Mrs. Casey and they thoroughly enjoyed themselves at the October 17th performance. We all agreed, Tom DeTitta’s words, characters and stories connected with the audience. There can be no higher praise!”
— Brent Glass, Executive Director at the Pennsylvania Museum and Historic Society
“‘And Grace Will Lead Me Home: The American POW Drama,’ is a smash hit! Tom DeTitta has written and produced a play so vivid, so real, so painful, so powerful, so provocative that we each take something home to ponder… There were few dry eyes when the lights came up. Men and women filed slowly out of the building weeping openly.”
— Americus Times Recorder
“Tom DeTitta has the mountains within him and through his hit play ‘Reach of Song’ he has done a great job in telling ‘our’ story.”
— Georgia Governor Zell Miller
“The new generation of writers in historic drama is led by Tom DeTitta. Until Mr. DeTitta’s ‘The Reach of Song’ it was considered impossible to present intimate psychological issues in a production that had to play loudly and boldly to reach the back rows.”
— Rodger Lyle Brown, Atlanta Journal/Constitution