Skylark Dreams

Skylark Dreams Director’s Notes

What happens if you get your car stuck in someone else’s dream? Skylark Dreams is Wind Woods’ exploration of the traps we find ourselves in when we try to fulfill someone else’s expectations, to inhabit a dream that wasn’t really of our own devising. The best-laid plans of the father can become the best-laid traps for the next generation.

In Wind’s play, the magic elixir that frees these young people from the bonds of family expectations to seek out their own future lies in the stories of a man who has searched for and perhaps found himself. In our research for the play, we lighted on the image of the Griot, an African tribal storyteller, revered by his people and possessed of the capability to sing the stories of collective tribal history. Wikipedia defines him as a West African poet, praise singer, and wandering musician, considered a repository of oral tradition. Griots today live in many parts of West Africa, including Mali, Gambia, Guinea, and Senegal, and are present among the Mande peoples, Fulbe (Fula), Hausa, Tukulóor, Wolof, Serer, Mauritanian Arabs and many other smaller tribes.

When E.J. says to Denise, “That’s your story, D. I just told it in a way that you had forgot how to,” he is performing the function of a modern-day Griot, a mechanic for the soul. With the naming of Javier he passes on the dream of owning one’s own garage to the next disenfranchised group of American dreamers who will build their own future.

In Skylark Dreams, playwright Wind Woods becomes the storyteller who shows us the power of dreaming.

Bill Partlan