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R. Miranda Burke is the creator and founder of DearDotNettieMae which was established in 2008. The name DearDotNettieMae came from combining the names of all of Miranda’s grandmothers. “Since I am a hybrid of my grandmothers, I wanted to find a way to honor these powerful and captivating women.” Dear is her paternal great-grandmother, Dot is her maternal great-grandmother, Nettie is her paternal grandmother, and Mae is her maternal grandmother.
The company originally started with doing plays in local churches, but she knew she wasn’t reaching her goal audience in this setting, even though she loved doing plays in a church. "I know some people will never step foot in a church, but they will go see a play." Miranda proceeded to take some time away from the DearDotNettieMae stage to hone her skills at Wright State University where she studied in their Theater, Dance and Motion Picture Department. After her time at Wright State, with the help of her friends, she relaunched the company now as DearDotNettieMae Theater Productions in 2013 and produced their stage play “No Ordinary Love”.
DearDotNettieMae consists of talented actors, writers, and directors who have helped Miranda along this journey with the company. Miranda spent much of her time writing and directing, but in 2016, she returned to the stage as an actor for the first time since 2007 in her stage play “Love Changes”. "Acting has always been my first love. So, to get back on the stage & direct is something new for me."
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Miranda had to find innovative ways to keep DearDotNettieMae up and running, and this included livestreams on Instagram and Facebook, streamed past stage plays, created video diaries, and hosted a soiree that honored domestic violence awareness. However, during the pandemic, Miranda had the opportunity to complete a task that she had been longing to complete: going back to school.
In the fall of 2020, Miranda was accepted into the University of Cincinnati, and earned a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. Through this program, she was able to discover how her interests in theater and education were able to collide. The program also led her to discover how big of an impact psychology and mental health would play in her life after a family member was diagnosed with a mental illness. She wanted to find a way to educate people on mental health diagnoses, and Miranda was able to combine her worlds and education and entertainment through creating shows while bringing awareness and raising money to erase the stigma surrounding mental health.
In 2022, DearDotNettieMae Theater Productions began to produce murder mystery dinner shows, the first being “No Ordinary Love”. With these new murder mystery dinner shows, Miranda felt as though she was able to take her stage play “No Ordinary Love” and turn it into a murder mystery for this dinner. For this dinner, they partnered with Madi’s House who help raise awareness in the fight against mental health and drug addiction. This dinner helped to raise one thousand dollars for Madi’s House. DearDotNettieMae’s work in raising awareness in the fight for mental health even grabbed the attention of Hayden Hurst, NFL tight end for the Los Angeles Chargers.
Today, DearDotNettieMae Theater Productions continues to create stage plays & murder mystery dinner experiences while continuing to bring awareness to the stigma surrounding mental health. Miranda wants to also provide a network for all the actors and creators so that they can receive mental health services if they ever need to. While the murder mystery experiences are the focus of the company to educate, engage, and entertain, providing a network of support for all creatives involved is the ultimate goal of DearDotNettieMae.