Sunday Storytimes Explore Interracial Love With YA Novel 'The Truth Of Right Now'

Adventure Theatre MTC's Sunday Storytimes explore the complicated drama of interracial teen romance with Kara Lee Corthron's debut Young Adult fiction novel, 'The Truth of Right Now' with guest host Nicole A. Watson, Associate Artistic Director at Round House Theatre. This digital interview is free and will stream on Facebook Live, August 23, 2020 at 2pm.

Two isolated teens struggle against their complicated lives to find a true connection in this heartwrenching debut novel about first love and the wreckage of growing up. Lily is returning to her privileged Manhattan high school after a harrowing end to her sophomore year and it's not pretty. She hates chemistry and her spiteful lab partner, her friends are either not speaking to her or suffocating her with concerned glances, and nothing seems to give her joy anymore. Worst of all, she can't escape her own thoughts about what drove her away from everyone in the first place. Enter Dari (short for Dariomauritius), the artistic and mysterious transfer student, adept at cutting class. Not that he'd rather be at home with his domineering Trinidadian father. Dari is everything that Lily needs: bright, creative, honest, and unpredictable. And in a school where no one really stands out, Dari finds Lily's sensitivity and openness magnetic. Their attraction ignites immediately, and for the first time in what feels like forever, Lily and Dari find happiness in each other. In twenty-first-century New York City, the fact that Lily is white and Dari is black shouldn't matter that much, but nothing's as simple as it seems. When tragedy becomes reality, can friendship survive even if romance cannot?

Executive Director Leon Seemann, Artistic Director Chil Kong, and Education Director Margo Brenner Collins are excited to explore a racial conflict story for a slightly older demographic than Adventure's typical productions.

Says Kong, "Corthron's debut YA novel is so vivid and haunting about two teens that are struggling with the impact of both racism and mental illness. The things these teens have to go through should be things that no one should have to go through, and yet, their struggle is incredibly common."

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