Daniel DeVault Directs CLYBOURNE PARK for Circle Players

Daniel DeVault directs the Pulitzer Prize-winning drama - and 2012 Tony Award winner for best play - Clybourne Park, running March 17-April 2, at Nashville's Z. Alexander Looby Theatre in a new production from Circle Players.

"Clybourne Park speaks to the times and the cultural landscape we see in Nashville and across the country right now," DeVault suggests. "Norris examines gentrification and racial divisions, and poses sharp-edged questions to audiences-questions that do not have simple 'black-and- white' answers. Have the dividing lines actually moved in 50 years? Have we changed our structure or merely changed our face to hide behind expected political correctness? Has the foundation of our country evolved or are we merely altering the surface?

DeVault's cast includes Matt Smith, Maggie Pitt, Carolinie Prince, Ethan Treutle, Chandra Walton, Doug Allen, Preston Crowder and Matthew Laird.

Picking up where Lorraine Hansberry left audiences at the end of her iconic (and historic) A Raisin in the Sun, Act 1 of Clybourne Park centers around an all-white community in 1950s Chicago as neighbors splinter over the black family about to move in.

Act 2 of Bruce Norris' play fast-forwards fifty years, and the same house-now in an all-black neighborhood-represents very different demographics: a white family now seeks to purchase, raze, and rebuild a larger structure in its place. What begins as polite conversation over the legalities of real estate quickly degrades as jokes fly and hidden agendas unfold.

One of the most-produced plays across the nation over the past five years, Clybourne Park is described as "a powerful look into race, privilege, gentrification, and communication" revealing just how far our ideas of the social and cultural landscape have changed...or have they?

"I hope audiences walk away from this production both curious and challenged; I hope they leave wanting to start conversations, to share ideas, and to think about how and if our city and our world has evolved," DeVault says. "Both daunting and significant, I hope audiences want to explore wherever we have come and wherever we are going as a society living in the present, living in a collection of communities, and living in a world of change."

Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park is presented by Circle Players March 17-April 2 at the Z. Alexander Looby Theatre, 2301 Rosa Parks Boulevard. Tickets are $15 and are available by calling (615) 332-7529 or at www.circleplayers.net/tickets.

To post a comment, you must register and login.