Long Wharf Theatre to Present SMART PEOPLE

Long Wharf Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director Gordon Edelstein and Managing Director Joshua Borenstein, presents Smart People by Lydia Diamond, directed by Desdemona Chiang.

Performances will take place from March 15 through April 9, 2017 on Stage II. Tickets start at $29.

The press opening will take place Wednesday March 22 at 7:30 pm.

The cast includes Ka-Ling Cheung (Ginny), Tiffany Nichole Greene (Valerie), SulliVan Jones (Jackson), and Peter O'Connor (Brian). The creative team includes Patrick Lynch (sets), Mary Readinger (costumes), Stephen Strawbridge (lights), Greg McGuire (sound), Calleri Casting (casting), and Kathy Snyder (stage manager.)

Brilliant, hilarious, and incisive, Lydia R. Diamond (adaptor of The Bluest Eye and author of Broadway's Stick Fly) explores the deep questions of race and identity in this controversial and fiercely funny play. On the eve of Obama's first election, four intellectuals - a doctor, an actress, a psychologist, and a neurobiologist studying the human brain's response to racial differences - find themselves entangled in a complex web of social and sexual politics. Everyone wants to be successful, to find love, and to feel as if they've made a positive impact on the world. But what influence does race have on that quest? In the great tradition of Clybourne Park and Disgraced, Smart People asks the questions that don't always get asked in public.

"Writing with wit, verve, a shrewd eye for portraiture and an equally shrewd ear for the tells and giveaways of invidious racial assumptions, Diamond has created a quartet of complex, flawed, intriguing, and, yes, smart people who register as much more than delivery systems for polemical freight," according to the Boston Globe. "Smart People is an incisive comedy about racial stereotypes and university politics," Edelstein said.

The play received its world premiere in 2014 at the Huntington Theatre Company in Boston. Diamond was inspired by an article by a prominent neuropsychologist's studies on race and by a spate of plays written by white men meditating on the same subject. She began her work on the piece in 2007. "I was trying to write a play about race, in real time -- at a time when that topic was shifting more than I'd witnessed in my lifetime. Seismic shifts," she said in an interview with the Huntington.

Director Desdemona Chiang was drawn in by the intelligence of the characters and by the comedic nature of the piece. These are deeply learned citizens, people who are engaged and thoughtful about issues of race, gender, and class, she said. "No amount of academic studying can prepare them for real life interactions. No amount of diversity training, inclusion training, counseling can actually prepare you for the surprise moment when you actually meet someone and encounter what affects you personally," she said.

She hopes that the play pushes people out of the comfort zones. "What I would love is for folks to keep talking in the car on the way home," she said.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit longwharf.org or call 203-787-4282.

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