←Recommendations of Baton

A powerful and heartbreaking look at issues of race, brutality and ones rights that will start an important conversation. Well done.

Artemisia congratulates playwright Deneen Reynolds-Knott for her insightful and beautifully-crafted writing in BATON, one of our Fall Festival 2019 Finalists.

This clear, relevant play, refuses to give easy answers, but it will break your heart and leave audiences discussing the issues. This play grabbed me from the start and has stayed with me a year later, and I hope it quickly moves to production, as it's a story we need to hear.

A play that constantly keeps you unbalanced as it digs deeper and deeper into issues of race, violence, and women's rights that are driven by complex characters. It's compelling and bracing and goes in unexpected directions. I saw a reading that left me feeling shaken and the work has stayed with me.

This is a layered exploration of so many things happening today including police brutality, black lives matter, and women's rights. All with characters that are compelling.

Premiere Stages, the professional Equity theatre in residence at Kean University, is pleased to recognize “Baton” by Deneen Reynolds-Knott as the runner-up for the 2018 Premiere Play Festival. “Baton” rose through a competitive selection process conducted by Premiere staff and a panel of outside theatre professionals encompassing 572 submissions. The panel was particularly impressed by its nuanced characters; its unflinching look at police brutality; and its complex examination of the ways both race and gender impact one woman. The play will receive a workshop at Premiere in June 2018. Our congratulations and thanks to Deneen.

This cunning and surprising play uses the troubling spectre of police brutality as a jumping-off point to launch an uncompromising exploration of the stubborn complexity of accountability, moral identity, and human relationships. You find yourself still talking about its implications days after you leave the theater.

BATON is a gripping play that poses important questions in regards to race, feminism, and police brutality. I highly recommend this play.