Theater Alliance’s first season under the helm of Producing Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell will take a hard look at the experience of being Black in America in its three-play 2019-2020 season.
The Theater Alliance season will kick off with Douglas Turner Ward’s 1965 play Day of Absence. In a sleepy Southern town, White residents awake to find that all the Black residents have disappeared. “Mr. Ward’s wit is scathing, if not exactly nuanced,” said the New York Times’ Alexis Soloski, reviewing a 2016 production in which Black actors performed the roles wearing white makeup. “There’s cruel humor in a white cop who goes crazy when he has no black men to assault and a Klan member upset that he wasn’t the one to drive the African-Americans out of town.” From October 5 to November 3, 2019; Caldwell will co-direct with Angelisa Gillyard.
Theater Alliance will then move to Harrison David Rivers’ The Bitter Earth. Neil is an impassioned activist, deeply involved in the Black Lives Matter movement. His dilemma is that his lover, Jesse, is not at all involved in Neil’s quest for social justice — is, in fact, almost apathetic. Does is matter that Neil is White and Jesse is Black? The Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones calls Rivers “a talented writer with a poet’s touch and a fast-beating heart,” and says of the play: “It homes with unusual alacrity on one of the central dilemmas faced by activists: How to deal with those who refuse to partake, especially when that means people with whom you are sharing a bed?” From February 22 to March 22 of next year; Otis Ramsey-Zöe will direct.
The company will top off its season with the world premiere of a commissioned work by Psalmayene 24. Of The Blackest Battle, Theater Alliance says, “It’s the Fourth of July in the not too distant future. Reparations have been paid to the African-Americans of Chief County—yet Black on Black violence rains down like a fiery storm. In this revolutionary hip-hop musical, Bliss and Dream, members of warring rap factions, fall in love while wrestling with making sense of their turbulent lives.” The Blackest Battle will run from May 16 to June 14, 2020. Caldwell and Manna-Symone Middlebrooks will co-direct.
Theater Alliance will preface its season with its third annual Word Becomes Flesh Festival, in which six local playwrights will present works which address the theme of Everyday Revolutions. The Festival will run from August 5 to 18 of this year.
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