Roundabout & Black Theatre United Announce Plan to Elevate and Restore Marginalized Plays to the American Canon

UPDATE (April 20, 2021)- A recent statement form Roundabout reads:

As our staff, artists, communities, and country await news from Minneapolis, Roundabout Theatre Company has decided to postpone the launch of The Refocus Project, originally scheduled for this Friday.

The project and reading series, created to elevate marginalized Black plays and playwrights from the 20th century, will now launch on Friday, April 30 with Samm-Art Willams' Home. Angelina Weld Grimké's Rachel will now premiere on Tuesday, May 4. The complete updated schedule is available at roundabouttheatre.org/refocus."

As a theater known for producing revivals, Roundabout Theatre Company is committed to embracing its responsibility to reshape and refocus the parameters of the American theatre canon. Roundabout has announced The Refocus Project, an annual program dedicated to elevating rarely produced and formerly marginalized theatrical voices from communities underrepresented or historically overlooked in the American theatre.

The Refocus Project will feature a robust selection of materials, available to industry professionals and the public. Beginning April 23, a resource library built to encourage and assist with future productions of each title will be available in addition to the launch of a weekly online play reading series featuring the selected plays. Roundabout will work with theater makers and artistic directors nationwide to encourage viewership and future engagement in the plays, with the intended goal of future productions of these works at theatres across the country.

Roundabout's 2021-2022 Broadway season will begin with Trouble in Mind by Alice Childress, directed by Charles Randolph-Wright. Childress is one of the first five playwrights in The Refocus Project.

The Refocus Project will also offer historical information, educational tools, panel discussions with artists, a "Literary Ancestry" essay series curated by Dave Harris (Roundabout's Tow Foundation Playwright-inResidence) and a series finale Community Conversation hosted by Roundabout Education. A partnership with The New York Public Library - spanning its branches, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Library for the Performing Arts - will further engage audiences in these offerings.

The first series of play readings, presented in association with Black Theatre United, will spotlight twentieth-century Black plays and their playwrights: Angelina Weld Grimké, Shirley Graham Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, Alice Childress and Samm-Art Williams.

The play series is free of charge. All suggested donations will directly support Black Theatre United.

The second year of The Refocus Project will feature Latinx playwrights.

Audiences can access The Refocus Project here.

"As our theatre begins this long overdue work, I'm grateful for the talented group of artists who have gathered to create Refocus. I'd also like to thank our friends at Black Theatre United, Ford Foundation and Bank of America for joining us," said Todd Haimes (Artistic Director/CEO). "We look forward to doing our part to realign ourselves with the great works of these American artists."

"We are thrilled to participate in Roundabout's Refocus program this spring since our focus at Black Theatre United encompasses inclusion, education and making necessary changes in the business of theater." - Black Theatre United (provided by Vanessa Williams, Founding Member of BTU and Board Member, Roundabout Theatre Company)

"The process of researching and reading these plays has been an education in both Black history and American theatre history, and it's been exciting to spend time exploring that intersection," said Roundabout's Literary Manager Anna Morton. "We know these writers will inspire playwrights and audiences today if they are simply given the chance to be seen, both through this series and at theatres across the country," added Roundabout's Associate Artistic Director Jill Rafson.

"The "Literary Ancestry" essay series for Refocus is about creating a collection of personal craft essays by Black playwrights about a non-living Black playwright that lives in your work," said Tow Playwright-inResidence Dave Harris. "I've always thought that there was a profound lack of writing by playwrights about other playwrights, and an even greater lack of playwrights writing about themselves, and so I wanted to curate a body of work that aims to honor the craft and tactics of a literary ancestor while also honoring yourself as a playwright who is now a part of that same canon. This canon that is as old as this country itself, and yet is underproduced, understudied, and continuously disrespected by the whiteimagined theatre canon that has been institutionalized."

THE REFOCUS PROJECT: YEAR ONE READINGS

RACHEL by Angelina Weld Grimké (1916)

Directed by RTC Resident Director Miranda Haymon. April 23, 2021

Living in a northern city at the turn of the 20th century, Rachel Loving is true to her name, exuding warmth and kindness while doting adoringly on any child she meets. But when her mother reveals a brutal story from the family's past, Rachel is shaken to her core and is forced to confront what it really means to bring a Black child into this world.

Originally produced by the NAACP's Drama Committee in Washington D.C., Rachel is believed to be the first play by a Black woman professionally produced in the United States.

HOME by Samm-Art Williams (1979)

Directed by RTC Senior Resident Director Kenny Leon. April 30, 2021

Is God on vacation in Miami? It certainly seems that way to Cephus Miles, who wonders if anyone is looking out for him in a world gone mad. Cephus loves the land and wants nothing more than to stay at home in Cross Roads, North Carolina, but fate has other plans in mind. Lost love and lost freedom eventually draw Cephus up north, where the big city just might eat him alive before God ever returns his call.

Home was originally produced by the Negro Ensemble Company at the St. Marks Playhouse, and that production transferred to Broadway in 1980 for an eight-month run that received a Tony nomination for Best Play.

I GOTTA HOME by Shirley Graham Du Bois (1939)

Directed by Steve H. Broadnax III. May 7, 2021

Reverend Cobb has a large, boisterous family and the dwindling bank account to match. So when the family learns that his long-lost sister is quite possibly the heir to a celebrity fortune, excitement and intrigue brew. But once the enigmatic Aunt Mattie blasts into town, the Cobb family and parsonage discover that things aren't quite what they seem!

I Gotta Home had an early production by the Gilpin Players at Western Reserve University. In an article on the play, The Cleveland Plain Dealer referred to Graham Du Bois as "One of Yale's most promising playwrighting students."

SPUNK by Zora Neale Hurston (1935)

Directed by Lili-Anne Brown. May 14, 2021

From the first day that Spunk, a charismatic, guitar-playing wanderer, sets foot in his new home, his bravado and musical talents make him the talk of this rural Florida town. Spunk immediately catches the eye of the lovely, young, and married Evalina Bishop, and their love affair sets off a chain of extraordinary events that none of their gossip-loving neighbors will ever forget.

This play is based on Hurston's short story Spunk which was published by Opportunity Magazine in June 1925. Ten years later, Hurston wrote this theatrical adaptation, which was never published and was considered to be lost for many years until the text was located in 1997.

Note: This is not the 1989 George C. Wolfe play of the same name, based on three Hurston stories.

WINE IN THE WILDERNESS by Alice Childress (1969)

Directed by Dominique Rider. May 21, 2021

Struggling artist Bill Jameson is working on his masterpiece, a triptych representing the different aspects of Black womanhood. He has completed his first panel illustrating innocent girlhood and his central panel depicting a regal African queen. As he embarks on the final panel-the unappealing, lost, down-on-her luck woman-in walks Tommy Marie, who looks like the perfect model. But once he gets to know Tommy further, Bill starts to wonder: is there more to the feminine ideal than meets the eye?

The first ever performance of Wine in the Wilderness was televised on WGBH-TV in Boston, Massachusetts as part of the series "On Being Black." Some networks refused to air the performance across the country, considering it to be too controversial for their viewers due to its depictions of racial issues.

The play selection committee for The Refocus Project's first year includes Jill Rafson, Associate Artistic Director; Kenny Leon, Senior Resident Director; Anna Morton, Literary Manager; Miranda Haymon, Resident Director; Dave Harris, Tow Playwright-in-Residence; Nicole Tingir, Senior Producer, Artistic Development, with help from artist recommendations and the Roundabout volunteer script readers.