Trouble in Mind
By Alice Childress
Directed by Dominic Taylor
January 30,31, February 5,6,7 at 7 p.m.
February 1 and 8 at 3 p.m.
Willetta Mayer, a talented, but struggling African American actress, has been cast to star in a Broadway Show, the anti-lynching play Chaos in Belleville. She has paid her dues and is ready for her star turn, but is this play as enlightened as she’s hoping? Chaos is written by a liberal white male and directed by a white male. Willetta’s journey shows us that theatrical practices often put show business and integrity on a collision course. When this collision also includes race and gender, it is a compelling and potent dramatic brew. Trouble in Mind, written in 1955 by Alice Childress, creates a theatrical microcosm with real world reverberations.
Tjornhom-Nelson Theater, Foss Center