DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Theater is subversion. And anxiously listening over the sounds of mint wrappers. But mostly subversion.
I’m not going to tell you anything else about this family whose home you’ve crashed into. Except that this play says stop, not slow down. If the ending arrives and you take a moment to turn to your neighbor, I promise you will find someone who has been moved or changed in a way worthy of unpacking.
Zora Neale Hurston believed the responsibility of the Black author, such as Drury herself in this monumentally challenging piece as we produced it for the first time in Los Angeles, is to “lift the veil” on the Black experience; what you see here today is the veil yanked, twisted, and re-twisted.
For my Black community and other people of color in the audience, I hope that you’re left feeling as though your agency is more than just acknowledged, as an “acknowledgement” is merely an address, an unintentional offering of belonging without opportunity and space.
We should instead be respected, revered.
The space we created in our rehearsals was intentional;
it held its breath and we held our breaths,
growing ever-comfortable with discomfort.
Welcome to an exhibition of bravery. Questions are begging to be asked, but we will not provide answers (sorry, y’all!)
-David H. Parker (they/them)
Playwright's Bio
Jackie Sibblies Drury is a Brooklyn-based author and playwright, and daughter to Jamaican immigrants. A native of Plainfield, New Jersey, where FAIRVIEW takes place, she is a graduate of Yale and Brown University MFA playwriting program, receiving the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting. Her other plays include: We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as South West Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915, Really, and Social Creatures.
Acknowledgments
Special thank yous to Khalif J. Gillett for the gorgeous (and viscerally uncomfortable) poster art, Devin Ty Franklin, Sophina Brown of Support Black Theater, Judith Moreland, Malika Oyetimein, Marike Splint, Bruce Lemon Jr., Edit Villarreal, and to the University of California, Los Angeles School of Theatre, Film, & Television for incubating me at a time in my life and career when graduate school seemed impossible and challenging me to question everything with a pulse. (If I forgot your name here, no I didn’t and I love you!)
Song List
Victoria Monét - On My Mama
Fela Kuti - Zombie
Doechii - Oh The Places You’ll Go
Tina Turner - Proud Mary
Original Music/Compositions by Malick Ceesay
DIRECTORIAL MOODBOARD FROM DIRECTOR - DAVID H. PARKER
DESIGN INSPIRATIONS FROM SCENIC DESIGNER - RYE MANDEL
COSTUME INSPIRATIONS FROM COSTUME DESIGNER - ELENA GIM
COMMUNITY AGREEMENTS
