An excerpt from …Or Does it Explode?
About John Dayo-Aliya
John Dayo-Aliya is an Akron Arts Alive and Knight Arts Challenge Award-winning playwright, actor, and musician. He is a graduate of Kent State University where he studied Theatre Arts and Pan-African Studies. He is Artistic Director of the nationally-recognized theatre company, Ma’Sue Productions. With Ma’Sue, Dayo-Aliya has produced eight plays in the past 9 years that have received numerous accolades and press in local media such as The Devil Strip, Akron Beacon Journal, The Plain Dealer, Akronlife Magazine, and many other locally and regionally published media outlets. His work has been produced at Balch Street Theatre, Cleveland Public Theatre, and Akron Civic Theatre. His work explores various aspects of the Black experience and is specifically interested in Black modern lives and the questions arising out of the challenge of holding on to faith, love, community, and familial ties while living against a backdrop of structural racism. He creates work that provokes audiences to call out to their higher humanity in order to face social and cultural issues with intelligence, clarity, and empathy.