[act-ma] 4/7/16 - Racial Justice Through Theater

[Brian Vester]

Plays That Don't Play: The Drama of Lynching

Thursday, April 7
7:00PM @ Ames Courtroom, Harvard Law School

Free and open to the public.

A reading of three historical plays protesting lynching, followed by a
panel discussion on the role of theater in confronting racial terrorism.
Hosted by Harvard University Professor Timothy P. McCarthy, Program
Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.

Beginning in 1916, a group of black women in Washington D.C. came together
to protest ceaseless acts of terrorism against African Americans - by
writing plays. These plays, which were written over many decades and never
commercially produced, focus on the survivors: lynching victims' mothers,
siblings and spouses. They tell the stories of women who tried to prevent
the violence and how they struggled to endure in its aftermath. The April
7th reading will feature three of these little known plays: Mary Burrill's
Aftermath (1919), Georgia Douglas Johnson's A Sunday Morning in the South
(1925), and May Miller's Nails and Thorns (1933). The cast includes
students from Harvard College, Harvard Law School, Harvard Graduate School
of Education, the A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training, and
Northeastern University.

The reading will be followed by a panel discussion on the role of theater
in confronting racial terrorism, hosted by Timothy P. McCarthy, Program
Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard Kennedy School.

Co-sponsored by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice
at Harvard Law School.

This event is free and open to the public.


To RSVP
http://americanrepertorytheater.org/page/plays-dont-play-drama-lynching

For more information:
http://history.fas.harvard.edu/event/art-harvard-law-plays-dont-play-drama-lynching