Last week was a whirlwind. I worked on a project called “The James Baldwin Project”. I was joined by a bunch of friends, old and new, from New York. Playwrights Lucy Thurber, Christopher Cartmill, along with director Lear deBessonet, and former students Jenna Worsham and Kevin Mannering, and actors Julissa Contreras, Alexander Lambie, David Zheng, and Cesar Rosado.

To explain the project a bit here is an excerpt from our flyer:

These artists would like to engage in an open conversation, one that revolves around the inspired work of James Baldwin, as he addressed so well what is often seen as unaddressable in our American history, namely: class, race, sexuality, economy, art, and government.

I brought down these artists to engage in conversations with people at W&L and create a piece of theater. We used quotes from the writings of James Baldwin. It was a ton of work. I set up 45 interviews/conversations with students, faculty, staff and residents of Lexington and Rockbridge county. We made care to match the interviewee with someone to complement them from the project team. The project team was made of people from many different backgrounds and races. Because one of the goals was to spark genuine conversation between disparate groups who they might not outside of this project.

The week generated a lot of very emotional conversations among us and the interviewees. Ultimately everybody wrote parts to include in the final piece, including me.

The W&L communications office piece on the event is here.

It was such an amazing and invigorating experience.

Here is the drawing I did for the flyer and program: