Surreal, Immersive LETTERS IN THE DIRT Coming to Silent Barn, The Tank

A timely, heart-wrenching, audience-participatory one-act Letters in the Dirt makes its independent Off-Off Broadway premiere at the Silent Barn, December 3rd at 7:30 and 9:30pm, and the Tank December 7-9th at 7pm.

Placing its audience face-to-face with the bubbly, insightful Aiyana Jones- a seven-year-old girl fatally shot by police in 2010 during a botched raid on the wrong home in Detroit, and has since become a symbol within the Movement for Black Lives- the piece asks participants to honor her memory by examining their political complacence in her death.

The date is May, 17th, 2010- the night after Aiyana's killing. Structured like a game and a ritual, the show lands it audience in a mysterious purgatory of children's toys, sidewalk chalk, and double dutch, where they are greeted by a chorus of black children who invite them to play a game. Each member finds that they have been provided an object; each object is one that was once a part of Aiyana's life. The "game" is this: the audience must use their objects to guide her through her memories to an understanding of what has happened to her.

Journeying through her memories, participants play her favorite playground games, meet the people dearest to her, and get to dream aloud with her about what it might look like if "we was all free." The show seamlessly blends play, poetry, spirituals, ritual, and group collaboration to create a soul-stirring, intimate audience experience personal to all who participate. "Everything is always over!" Aiyana laments- Letters in the Dirt is a vibrant new work honoring the way black folks make new beginnings, and leaving participants to ask urgent questions about their place in this political moment long after they leave the theater. All while celebrating black imagination, vulnerability, and femininity, the experience asks: what does it mean to own anything when you yourself are owned? And to create symbols for yourself when you already are one?

Written and directed by Rosie DeSantis, alumnus of the Experimental Theater Wing, poet, and teaching artist with the Town Hall, Letters in the Dirt is presented by an independent coalition of producers, designers, and volunteers from the WOW Café Theater, the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU, and Espii Studios.

IF YOU GO:

LETTERS IN THE DIRT

The Silent Barn
December 3, 7:30 and 9:30 pm
$8
603 Bushwick Ave, Brooklyn NY 11206
Bushwick @ Myrtle Ave off the M, J, Z trains
(929) 234-6060
Tickets: silentbarn.org/2017/11/letters-in-the-dirt

The Tank
December 7-9, 7 pm
$13 general, $10 students
312 W 36th St, New York, NY 10018
8th Ave @ 36th st off the A, C, E trains
(212) 563-6269
Tickets: thetanknyc.org/theater/859-letters-in-the-dirt