We are excited to kick off our Racey Plays Reading Series with A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People written by the illustrious Kevin R. Free.A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People is a dangerous comedy that looks at popular culture and artistic and racial marginalization. In 20 short parodies of plays, films, and various pop culture events, A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People, tells the story of one artist who, dogged by his conscience, is ready to leave behind his life’s work.
Kevin R. Free, the creator of Black Plays for White People, wants OUT. He announces to his adoring public that he will move on to creating work that is more in line with his sociopolitical beliefs. But his creations – Whitelady, Blackboy, Blackgirl, Whiteboy, Whitegirl (the stars of his Black Plays for White People) – frightened that they may never again see the lights of the stage, revolt. They perform the roles they were meant to play, taking the words already written for them to create new plays, thus trapping Kevin R. Free in his own artistic identity prison.
Why do a reading series about Racey Plays you might ask?
My world got shaken up the first time I traveled to India with my boyfriend to meet his family and travel. It was the most foreign sensation to be looked at as foreign. Everywhere I went, people stared at me. In the streets, beggars and merchants swarmed around me. That's normal. I was obviously a tourist and that's who gets goods hawked to them. But I got more attention that just for being a tourist. I was stared at by EVERYONE. EVERYWHERE. I had never felt all those eyes on me before. Mostly they were looks of interest, but it still felt so strange to be looked at because I was so glaringly different. When I mentioned this to my boyfriend, he laughed and said - more or less - "Welcome to my world! That's what its like for me every day at home. This is the only time I'm not stared at like that." That really floored me. I mean, to suddenly feel what it is like for someone considered a "minority" in America to be in a room, a street, a city, a country, where you stand out is an intense sensation that makes you become self-aware and self-conscious. This feeling stayed with me forever after that.
Since then, I've had many experiences of feeling "outside" the racial majority. The more countries I experienced, the more I was able to again confront the feeling that race, the color of one's skin, plays a huge role not only in how people perceive an individual, but in how that individual begins to perceive herself. I became keenly interested in race - in trying to figure out all the implications. I even wrote a one woman show about it.
Now I am looking to share the voices of others artists who are trying to explore the intricacies of race and culture in their work. Ultimately, these are plays about identity, about what it means to be a human being living in a skin, a culture, an ethnicity, or a language that just doesn't quite fit the majority mold.
We hope you can join us for the kick off to the series with Kevin's play, it will no doubt be an incredible night of theater.
