Race on Stage: A Conversation with the Actors

by David Dower

Emily Ackerman as Lisa Kron and Donnetta Lavinia Grays as Lori Jones in Well

On Thursday, October 11th, we'll host an interesting discussion following the performance of Well. Arena's Associate Executive Director Desirée Urquhart will moderate a conversation with Donnetta Lavinia Grays ("Lori Jones" in Well), Tracey Scott Wilson (author of the play The Good Negro which we'll be reading in our Downstairs Series on October 22nd), and Harriett D. Foy ("Lorraine" in The Women of Brewster Place). 

Our topic: Race on Stage

There are a couple of convergent events that make this a great moment to stop and discuss, with our audiences, where we are as a community around the issues of race as played out on the stage of Arena Stage, in the local, national, and global context of our Washington, D.C. location.

Donnetta and I have been talking about the discomfort in the audience for Well around the repeated disruptions by the character of Lori Jones. Whenever Lori appears, the lights come up very bright and you can easily see the people you are watching the play with. The looks on some faces in the audience say "Is this allowed?"  "Can we laugh?  "Where are you taking me?" 

At the same time, the announcement about our reading of Tracey Scott Wilson's play, which focuses on the Civil Rights movement, caused a flurry of concern amongst our audience and staff just by its title. Again the question of whether it was appropriate and where it was headed came up. 

And the long-awaited premiere of The Women of Brewster Place has landed in the building, bringing with it the questions that have always accompanied the beloved novel by Gloria Naylor: "Where is she taking us on the issues of gender and sexuality that play out in the novel?" 

Join us if you'd like to dive into this timely discussion. We expect to start at 9:45pm on Thursday, October 11th. If you can't be here, check back with us at Stage Banter. Vijay will be videotaping the conversation and posting the best segments here.

I find it exciting that this convergence at Arena is happening at the same moment as the surprising breakthrough of the Jena 6 story and the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock 9. I was at an electrifying conversation at Busboys and Poets over the weekend that was asking where we're headed in relation to the 'new civil rights movement' the media's been trumpeting in response to the situation in Jena. Some in the crowd also wanted to talk about the lack of similar mobilization around the case of Megan Williams in West Virginia.

Busboys and Poets hosts A Continuing Talk On Race the first Sunday of every month. I first attended in July when Daniel Beaty was the guest and we had organized a reading of his new play Resurrection. I certainly plan to go back. Maybe I'll see you there.