Supporting Visionary Storytellers...
Melda Beaty 2025 Finalist
Feebleminded
Play synopsis
In 1965, North Carolina's Eugenics Board played god. After a brutal rape, they labeled 16 year old, Laine Brown, feebleminded and unfit to bore anymore children for the "good of society." She, and a disproportionate number of poor black girls and women, suffered coerced sterilizations because the law of the land said so, but when Laine's ancestors appear, North Carolina learns that they played god with the wrong one.
Playwright BIO
Melda Beaty, a passionate playwright, claimed the prestigious 2022 National Black Theatre Festival's Sylvia Sprinkle-Hamlin Rolling World Premiere Award for her outstanding work, "Coconut Cake." Her theatrical journey began with the debut of her first play, "Front Porch Society," at The Ensemble Theatre in Houston, TX. Her talent and dedication extend beyond her creative pursuits. She was a Confluence Fellow with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, where she honed her latest creation, "Feebleminded." As a member of the Board of Directors for the August Wilson Society, Dramatists Guild, and a contributing editor for Black Masks magazine, she actively contributes to the literary community.
From the Playwright...
Feebleminded is my most ambitious play yet. I wanted to write a play based on a real-life event, seeped in history, with multiple characters, and told through the literary device, magical realism, because its use has fascinated me in other plays.
The play was originally developed with the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival Confluence Fellowship in 2021-2022. I was part of a small but mighty cohort of female playwrights. However, when the fellowship ended, I was left asking, what is next? I knew my ambitious play needed further development, but I did not know where to turn.
Prof. Hart notified me that she was launching the Play Development Lab and encouraged me to apply, and I am so glad that I did. It wasn't until my play was selected for the Play Development Lab that I was guided and encouraged to take Feebleminded to the next level through dramaturgical expertise. Professor Hart's expertise as a dramaturg provided the insight that my play was missing. Through one-on-one personal sessions, she challenged and expanded my notions of what was possible for not only my play but for my career as a playwright.
The entire process of development was personal, collaborative, reassuring, and validating. This newer and clearer version of my play is a direct result of the Lab and the acting talents of the Howard University students.
Feebleminded 3/14/2025 Developmental Play Reading at Howard University
Edwin Brown III, Director
Directing Credits: Thoughts of a Colored Man at Oxford University (BADA); The Red Plus at DC Fringe Festival, Feebleminded with Play Development Lab
Acting Credits: (Off Broadway) Thoughts of a Colored Man and Separate and Equal; (Regional) Romeo and Juliet/The Three Musketeers national tour with The Acting Company; Fly at Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Wig Out! and Three Sisters at Studio Theatre; Macbeth at Shakespeare Theatre DC; Freedom Rider and Pericles at Kansas City Repertory Theatre; Troilus and Cressida at Copaken Stage; The Freedom Trial of Anthony Burns at Coterie Theatre; The Long Journey from Trenton to Camden at Ford’s Theatre; Stepping out the Negro Caravan with Debbie Allen at Howard University, (Film/TV) Smithsonian Channel Lincoln’s Washington at War
Edwin is a Professor and co-coordinator of the Acting concentration in the Department of Theatre Arts at Howard University.
The Play Development Lab offers play- development experience for Black women playwrights to advance process, craft & career.
The Play Development Lab under the direction of Professor Denise J. Hart is part of the Department of Theatre Art's New Works Initiative, designed to offer comprehensive play development support to professional Black women playwrights. Through this program, Professor Hart aims to advance their creative processes, enhance their craft, and foster long-term careers.
The Lab serves as a vital resource for playwrights while also providing Howard University students with invaluable opportunities to engage directly in developing new plays that center on the Black Diaspora. Students will participate in various roles, from acting to stage management, fostering an interactive and collaborative learning experience.
The inaugural cohort for the 2024/2025 Play Development Lab includes six professional playwrights, two of whom have been selected as finalists. The finalists will each receive a developmental play reading, allowing students and patrons to witness the creative process.
The Play Development Lab is an essential step forward in creating spaces where Black women playwrights can hone their craft while also fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for the ongoing development of the Black theater canon.
Denise J. Hart, an Emmy nominated award winning playwright, dramaturge and director has created an intensive play development opportunity for professional black women playwrights to develop their work through one-on-one meetings, table work and rehearsals with a cast of actors and developmental readings.
CLICK HERE to read about Professor Hart's previous play development program, Visiting Playwrights 2008-2017.
PDL Leadership
Denise is an award winning playwright and dramaturge. As a play development dramaturge she has partnered with the Lark Play Development Center/NYC to bring international Ivorian playwright Kofi Kwahule's work to the US, Black Girl You've been Gentrified by Nichole Thompson Adams, Nothing to Lose by Denise J. Hart and supported a number of emerging playwrights through partnership with the Playwrights Forum/WDC and through the Visiting Playwrights Series where she helped develop the work of Nikkole Salter, A. Peter Bailey, Peter Harris, and Elizabeth Bruce. She has shared her expertise on WDC's Fox 5 TV & WJLA/ABC News and with Ford's Theatre "Written Then, Spoken Now" on CSPAN, Studio Theatre, Shakespeare Theatre, The August Wilson Society, Arena Stage, Mosaic Theatre, Howard University and Hatiloo Theatre in Memphis TN.
Production dramaturge and audience dramaturge credits include: Rhyme Deferred, Black Nativity, Jitney (recipient of the 2019 Memphis Ostrander Award for Best Production), Flyin' West, Milk Like Sugar, Sweet Charity, Joe Turner's Come and Gone, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Day of Absence (Kennedy Center ACT Festival Outstanding Acting Ensemble Award), Zooman and the Sign, Malcom, Martin & Medgar, Breath Boom and the DC Queer Festivals' productions of Quick Stop at the Florist and Secret Mist of the Blue.
As a scholar dramaturge/presentation coach, for six years, Denise coached internationally recognized scholars, artists and activists for appearances on the Lone Star Emmy nominated Blackademics TV, which airs on PBS and reaches over 3 million households.
She served as the 2021 & 2022 Howard Entertainment Faculty Externship recipient at Amazon Studios where she worked in Drama Development and Limited Series Drama Development and contributed to some of America's favorite TV shows!
Playwrights We Attract Are...
Black Women Playwrights...
who write plays better than "AI" can copy them
who have something radically meaningful to say
who are willing to look like they're wrong but they write anyway
who own their personal status
who own their unique voice
who don't ask for permission
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