Reconcilation out of Agitation

Greetings ROOTS members!

I have a question for you. Last Spring when the local theater in my community which is called
The Prince, announced it was producing a new play about the history of
Chestertown MD with a similar subject to the outdoor 1777 reenactment play that
is performed outside every year at the Tea Party Festival, I had a question.

How can you as a community theater, be preparing a new play
about freedom and equality without recognizing African American history and
presence in this community?

I decided to go to the auditions. I read a monologue I’d
written about African American representation culturally in this community when
depicting history. I questioned the theater’s openness and level of community
engagement when producing such an event with out the input of African American
leadership. I created… a scene.

But the process that the theater took to produce the play
did not change after my action. The theater did send the script to a local
African American playwright to get his opinion, just before the play was to
open. The director of the local African American Museum was also able to see
the script. Both of them were horrified at how the sole African American
character was portrayed. When they understood that this new play was supposed
to be soon performed in the local schools, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, both of them also protested.

Their protest didn’t change the play before it opened, but
after the play was performed in its originally form, the theater had a meeting
with the African American Heritage Council (AAHC). The Prince Theater agreed to
table the play and not continue progress on it going into the schools without
the AAHC input. Also at this meeting the idea of having a reconciliation event
at the theater to acknowledge the pain caused from the period of time when this
theater was segregated was born.

The AAHC started meeting with Prince Theater about how this
reconciliation event might be realized. The Board Secretary (that would be me)
coordinated times and dates and the planning started. Upon requesting a formal
apology, the Prince Board President consulted his Universalist minister and a
formal reconciliation document was found to model the scripted interactions.
The event was first mentioned in the local paper through a press release
written by the Prince about the changes they are making to the building.
Leaders from both the Prince and the AAHC were then interviewed for a feature
on the event, which appeared again on the front page of the local paper. But
guess who was portrayed as having the idea for the event? The Prince Theater of
course.

So, my question to you as ROOTS members is: Do we stay polite
and say nothing about this kind of misrepresentation, and the play that was the
catalyst for the event, or do we press again and try to start a dialogue about
how this event came along to be in the first place?

Here is a link to an article that came out about the event today.

http://www.chestertownspy.com/2010/03/the-princes-evening-of-reconciliation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheChestertownSpy+%28The+Chestertown+Spy%29

Peace.

Hope Clark