S1E3: Immigrant Stories on Boston Stages: Inside the Ufot Family Cycle

What does it mean to build a life between cultures, languages, and generations?

In this episode of Scene in Boston, hosts Laura Amico and Lisa Thalhamer step inside one of the most ambitious projects unfolding in Boston theater right now: Nigerian American playwright Mfoniso Udofia’s Ufot Family Cycle. This sweeping series of nine plays traces one immigrant family across decades, continents, and shifting ideas of home. The cycle's seventh play, Lifted, opens today.

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The episode features Kevin Becerra of The Huntington Theatre Company, who discusses how the cycle is unfolding across multiple Boston theaters and why the project has become a rare citywide theatre collaboration. He discusses how through bilingual storytelling in Ibibio and English, layered timelines, and characters who reappear across plays, Udofia’s work explores immigrant stories not as a single journey but as a lifelong process of identity, belonging, and family.

The conversation also looks at Lifted, a workshop production being produced this March in locations across the Boston area, and the ways audiences can enter the cycle even if they haven’t seen every play. Along the way, Laura and Kevin talk about the storytelling details that make the world of the Ufot family feel alive onstage — from recurring references and cultural touchstones to moments when language itself becomes part of the drama.

The hosts also preview upcoming theater in Boston, including announcements from Broadway in Boston’s upcoming season and new productions arriving on local stages in the months ahead — a reminder that Boston's theatre scene continues to support both large touring shows and ambitious new plays.

Mentioned in this episode

The Ufot Family Cycle: Lifted and In Old Age

A nine-play series by playwright Mfoniso Udofia tracing one Nigerian American family across generations, languages, and continents. The cycle is being presented through a rare collaboration among multiple Boston theaters.

Lifted will be presented March 10, 12, 14 at the Footlight Club in Jamaica Plain, March 24-28 at the Maso Studio, Huntington Theatre, and March 29 at Diana Chapman Walsh Alumnae Hall Auditorium, Wellesley College. Tickets are $0-25.

In Old Age is produced by ArtsEmerson and Front Porch Arts Collective and will be on stage June 13- 28. Tickets are now available.

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