New York City, November 3, 2025 — Renowned theater artist, ritual practitioner, and community-builder Dorothea Gloria unveils her latest project, ALAY, a work that unites her lifelong devotion to performance, heritage, and collective ceremony.
Based in New York City, Dorothea has shaped a creative practice deeply rooted in her Filipino cultural identity, sustained by her love for storytelling and a belief in collaboration as transformation.
Her artistic statement—anchored in theater, ritual, and community—embodies her conviction that art reaches its fullest power when it invites people to gather, reflect, and transform together.
The New Work: ALAY
Dorothea’s upcoming performance, ALAY, continues her journey of exploring theater as a sacred and communal act. Supported by a Social Practice CUNY grant funded by the Mellon Foundation, the piece intertwines the mourning rituals of Ilocos in Northern Philippines with contemporary performance, shaping a space where memory, loss, and renewal coexist.
Drawing from oral histories, ancestral songs, and community engagement, ALAY honors the past while engaging audiences in reflection on how mourning and celebration can harmonize. The work uplifts voices across generations and geographies, acknowledging the Filipino diaspora’s relationship to grief, continuity, and remembrance.
Blending her background in fictional writing—often infused with humor, cultural nuance, and intimacy—with her fearless embrace of collaboration, Dorothea invites both seasoned theatergoers and newcomers into a reclaimed ritual space that is as personal as it is collective.
Past Work & Creative Journey
Dorothea’s body of work spans two continents and multiple artistic disciplines, embodying performance and pedagogy in equal measure.
Early Life and Philippine Career
Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, Dorothea began performing at age seven with Repertory Philippines. By thirteen, she became the youngest artist accepted into the Trumpets Playshop Summerstock program, portraying Prince Arthur in Pendragon.
Under the mentorship of Ana Valdes-Lim, she cultivated a love for both classical and modern theater—studying Shakespeare, Chekhov, Miller, Shaw, and Anouilh. During college, she earned an acting scholarship and joined the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA-MTTL), performing in socially engaged works centered on voting rights, women’s empowerment, and public health.
Her later work with Repertory Philippines and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) brought her critical recognition, including a Best Featured Actress citation from BroadwayWorld Philippines. Among her acclaimed performances are roles in Pramoedya and August: Osage County, both noted for their emotional precision and warmth.
New York City: Teaching, Performance, and Collaboration
After relocating to New York City, Dorothea joined the Stella Adler Studio of Acting as an assistantship recipient, where she expanded her understanding of performance as both discipline and craft. Her stage work includes appearances at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, Lucille Lortel Theatre, and The Tank.
As a resident artist at Spellbound Theatre, she creates original works for young audiences—using storytelling and play to cultivate empathy and imagination. Her collaborations with TeamTheatre and RiffRaff NYC further reflect her commitment to experimentation and social dialogue.
Her project Connections, produced with TeamTheatre through a Queens Council on the Arts grant, explored belonging, isolation, and technology—translating stories of migration and family into a hybrid performance that fused text, movement, and digital communication. The piece united artists and audiences in reflecting on the fragile yet enduring bonds that sustain communities across distance.
With RiffRaff NYC, Dorothea has continued to blur the boundaries between character, ritual, and audience participation, reaffirming her interest in theater as an act of shared witnessing and transformation.
As a teaching artist in New York schools, she continues to nurture young voices, guiding students to use storytelling as a bridge toward empathy, understanding, and creative freedom.
In interviews, Dorothea has expressed her mission “to write diverse stories, challenge stereotypes, build empathy, and honor the contributions of immigrant communities to our shared cultural landscape.”
About Dorothea Gloria
Dorothea Gloria is a Filipino-born, New York–based actor, writer, producer, educator, and ritual practitioner whose work lives at the crossroads of heritage, storytelling, and communal ceremony. With roots in Manila and a home in New York City, she envisions performance as offering, ritual as transformation, and community as co-creation.
Her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation through Social Practice CUNY and the Queens Council on the Arts, and she has performed in critically acclaimed productions in both the Philippines and the United States.
Dorothea is currently developing ALAY, a participatory performance grounded in Filipino mourning traditions, while teaching Generating Work, a course that helps artists transform creative impulses into meaningful offerings.
actor community educator producer ritual practitioner theater writer
Last modified: November 5, 2025
