James Morrow: Director
Laurence Hobgood: Music

Eli Motley: Key Cast

Set in the extraordinary years of the 2020s, “The Wonder Years” looks both back and forward through the eyes of Eli, the oldest of five children in the Motley family, on the tribulations and joys of growing up in the United States as a twenty something black male.
With music by Laurence Hobgood, the low-fi anti-tech home movie style of the work is a nod to classic 80’s sitcoms with an open, unapologetic, and ultimately vulnerable journey filled with all the feels and even some much-needed levity.

A native of Chicago, IL. James Morrow is the founder and artistic director of james morrow/ The Movement.
Coming from an urban dance background, Morrow yearns to see the contemporary composition prevalent in concert dance integrated into the urban dance culture with which he is submerged.
His movement has become a fusion of modern, contemporary, and urban dance styles. His choreography can be seen on companies throughout the U.S. and internationally working in Utrecht, Vienna, Mumbai, Puebla, Toronto, Montreal, Krasnoyarsk, Kerch, Vancouver, London, Scotland, and New Brighton.

Morrow was on Faculty at the American Dance Festival (summer 2010) and at the Bates Dance Festival's Youth Arts Program (2018-2020). He received a fellowship to Hollins University/The American Dance Festival (2011) where he earned his MFA in dance.
He has been recipient of the Artist Ambassador Award to Northeastern Illinois University (2001), The Mordine and Co. Mentoring Project (2006), Chicago Cultural Dance Center’s Dance Bridge (2008), Movement Research at Judson Church (2012), SOLO Commissioned Choreographer for Minnesota's McKnight Dance Fellow (Stephen Schroeder 2012), Bates Teacher Fellowship (2013), the Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellow in Choreography (2014), The Helen Coburn Meier & Tim Meier Foundation Achievement Award (2015), Boston Center for the Arts Choreographic Residency (2016), The Boston Dance Alliance Retreat and Rehearsal Fellowship (2017), Dance Magazine's Reader's Choice Awards "Most Inventive New Work" as a choreographic collaborator for Chicago Dance Crash (2017), ACDA' Mid-Atlantic North Gale Selection for Old Dominion University's NONFICTION (2019), and the Chicago Tribune's Best in Dance (2019).

As a dancer/ performer, Morrow has worked with Chicago based companies: The Joel Hall Dancers, Deeply Rooted Productions, Ascension/The Kirby Reed Project, Ken Von Heidecke’s Festival Ballet, Larry Long’s Civic Ballet, Culture Shock Chicago, Concert Dance, Inc., Mordine and Co., Hedwig Dances, The Tyego Dance Project, Impetus Dance Chicago, MOMENTA, and Nick Cave's (Soundsuits) of The Art Institute of Chicago.

Other performance credits include working with New York’s: Helen Pickett, nicholasleichterdance, Gina Kohler/ Dream Factories, Danielle Russo Dance Company, Tami Stronach Dance, Tessa Chandler, Margaret Morrison, Wendell Cooper, Yozmit, DeeLite, DJ Kotchy, Bahama’s: The Baha Men, Minnesota’s: Sesame Street Live, Toronto’s: Gerry Trentham/ Pounds Per Square Inch Theatre, Michigan’s: Kalamazoo Ballet, Berlin's : Tino Sehgal, North Carolina’s: Tommy DeFrantz/ Slippage, Ellen Hemphill/ Archipelago Theater, Jim Havercamp, Alex Maness, Florida’s: Jacksonville Dance Theater, Rachael McClellan Leonard, Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Elevated Aerial Dance, and Massachusetts's: Jen Pollins, Paul Matteson, Peter Dimuro, Caitlin Corbett, Meghan McLyman, Across The Ages Dance Project..

As an educator, Morrow has worked as full- time dance faculty/ Assistant Professor of Dance at Northeastern Illinois University, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Episcopal School of Jacksonville, Hartford Academy for the Arts, Pioneer Valley Performing Arts, and Salem State University.
He is currently living in Norfolk,VA. and working as an assistant professor of dance at Old Dominion University.