Dr. Indira Etwaroo, the present CEO and Inventive Director of Harlem Stage is a girl to be reckoned with — particularly in terms of spearheading the telling of the Black individuals’s untold tales and the injustices they’ve endured and proceed to endure underneath racist law enforcement officials and a corrupt system. She isn’t afraid to say that that is one thing that must be acknowledged and talked about.
We’ve got to acknowledge the place police mistreatment of Black individuals has been on this nation, from the Freedom Riders of the Sixties to the victims of police brutality and homicide by way of the many years and right now. For that reason, when Dr. Etwaroo determined to current the manufacturing “Freedom Riders: A Journey with No Finish in Sight”, which she additionally directed, it isn’t stunning that this poignant play, with 12 tales of police profiling, abusing and murdering Black individuals, got here throughout so uncooked and so brutally. The title makes a profound assertion by itself. This manufacturing was attempting to sound an alarm, function a wake-up name that one thing must be completed about this. This poignant, disturbing, vivid work has an adaptation by Arthur Yorinks with Zenzele Daniels and Dr. Etwaroo and was introduced in partnership with The New Press.
Because the viewers sat within the intimate theater at Harlem Stage on one hundred and thirty fifth Road and Convent Avenue, we noticed 5 mesmerizing, extraordinary actors carry out a number of roles as they informed tales of people that have been victims of police brutality, profiling, harassment, and violence, together with rape. Russell Hornsby, Billy Eugene Jones, Lisa Arrindell, Stephen Tyrone Williams, and Angelica Ross (together with Harry Lennix at two performances) informed the actual experiences of those characters, representing Black individuals from across the nation, typically not figuring out themselves by identify, solely telling the place they have been and what their encounter with the police concerned. They painted a really clear image of the humiliating, abusive interactions, at occasions turning into emotional. In every scenario, they have been responsible of driving whereas being Black, strolling whereas being Black, or being of their residence sleeping whereas being Black, as in addition they informed the story of Breonna Taylor.
As every individual stepped onto the stage, the tales would change, however the atmosphere stayed the identical. You knew you have been about to see somebody who was focused by the police for no justifiable purpose; somebody who was degraded; a girl who was cavity searched when pulled over in her automotive along with her brother. The automotive was searched, her license was run and nothing was discovered; neither was an apology. The manufacturing additionally spoke the numerous names of Black individuals who have died by the hands of the police — George Floyd, Michael Brown, Shawn Bell, Trayvon Martin and so many others — deaths for which the police acquired no penalties. In doing this, in saying their names, this manufacturing is ensuring that their tales keep alive and in that method, they’re saved alive within the recollections of society.
The strain within the room was thick and the temper was heightened by the dwell music of pianist Arden Altino, guitarist/singer Divinity Roxx, and violinist Daniel Bernard Roumain, with a music rating composed by Altino, Roxx and Romain. The technical crew was unimaginable and included technical director Breashel Mondesir, assistant technical director Ricardo Fernandez, theatrical visible designer Devin Cameron, affiliate lighting designer Cora McKenna, costume designer and prop grasp Jorge Rosario, audio engineer John Altino, audio assistant Gabe Wilhelm, and director of images Tony Burns. The manufacturing performed a restricted run of 16 performances and was one thing that each one individuals wanted to see.
Many faculty and church teams acquired to expertise it at Harlem Stage, and it sparked conversations there, because it did on the universities it was carried out at — within the South. That is such an necessary step in shouting out this program and getting a dialogue to start. As Dr. Etwaroo proclaims in this system, this story is necessary as a result of artwork is necessary in the way in which that it addresses points in society. “We meet this second not with routine, however with urgency. The urgency for one among humanity’s oldest and most unflinching devices of reality: The telling of tales.”
One factor that I really appreciated seeing within the playbill was that Dr. Etwaroo had her firm carry out this manufacturing at church buildings and HBCUs taking the manufacturing on the bus and retracing in reverse the trail of the Freedom Riders, honoring the Nice Migration, performing the present in Montgomery, Atlanta, Georgia, Greensboro, North Carolina and ultimately coming to Harlem to their theater residence.
What Dr. Etwaroo is doing at Harlem Stage is one thing that we should always all need to discover out extra about. To take action, go to HarlemStage.org.
