Janice Liddell

In 1944 a black domestic woman in Cuthbert, Georgia killed her long-time white lover/abuser after a night of drinking and arguing. He had kept her imprisoned in his mill for an entire day, then returned to have forced sex with her. She refused, they fought, she killed him. Lena was arrested that day in April. Her trial was held in August and lasted only four ½ hours. The deliberation of the jury of twelve white men lasted ½ hour on the same day. She was found guilty and was sentenced to die. In March, 1945 Lena was transferred to Reidsville Prison, a male prison and where she became the first and only woman to die in Georgia’s electric chair. On August 30, 2005, Ms. Lena Baker was finally granted a posthumous pardon by the State of Georgia Pardons and Parole Board in a ceremony attended by the playwright in Atlanta, Georgia.

Why is African American family history, too often, not transferred from generation to generation? Perhaps because this history is swathed in agony and horror or maybe because the family focus has consciously shifted from the painful past to a more hopeful future or perhaps few see the potential impact of the past on the family’s present or future goals. Sometimes, for a host of reasons, family members are simply ignorant of their own family history. Viewed within the context of the Black Lives Matter movement and police killings of unarmed Black men, the Fuqua family comes to terms with its traumatic past and begins to appreciate the responsibility they have, both individually and collectively, to making a “difference.”

Diante’s Hell borrows from Dante Alighieri’s The Inferno, particularly Canto 12, Circle
7, Round 1, the realm of Violence against neighbors and associates. As well, it borrows from Charles Dicken’s, The Christmas Carol and the classic Christmas film, It’s a Wonderful Life. With this intertextualization, Diante’s Hell, focuses on the ultimate redemption of a murderous drug dealer, Diante Crawford, in Atlanta, Georgia and is told—much of it—in the graphic language of the streets.

Diante’s most recent victim, is Virgil, “Squirrel” Thomas whose funeral Diante and his lackeys have just attended on this Good Friday afternoon. Later that evening when he is alone, Diante is visited by the spirit of Squirrel, who returns—with a mission—as a soul damned to hell. He will spend an eternity in hell unless he can help someone who is equally doomed to turn his life around. Diante is his target, but the mission is compromised when Squirrel reveals that it was he (Squirrel) who killed Diante’s four year old daughter Bea-Bea several years ago in a drive-by shooting. As evening approaches, Diante is also visited by his mother, who died when he was sixteen, then by Bea-Bea, who has selected to return in the form of what she could have been had not her father’s lifestyle contributed to the end of her life—a Spelman graduate in law school. After these two important encounters, Diante is transformed. In the end, a clear signal is pronounced to Diante that both he and Squirrel have been saved from an eternity in the boiling blood. The proverbial bell rings.

An omniscient and integrated chorus (not unlike a Greek chorus)—composed of characters (usually 4-5) who do not have specified roles at a given time—serves as a single character or entity even though some individualized personalities may also emerge. A chorus master may lead the chorus. The function of the chorus is to provide some context and commentary for characters’ experiences; help propel the “action” of the play and assist with transitions within and between scenes. While this play draws on venerable classics, its goal is also to appeal to what might be called a non-traditional theatre audience. (“adult language”)

Essie, a fifty-five year old woman, is lured by an African
Elder woman into completing the journey and participating in the ritual that will establish her as an elder woman of wisdom, a crone. The completion of the journey includes confronting the guilt and regret that she has harbored since her youth, which she does through literal showdowns: her aging self vs. her teen-aged self, as well as her aging self vs. her early woman self. After resolutions are achieved, an elder woman escorts Essie to her crone stage and to her crowning.

Ruth Adams, a middle-aged African American woman, has retired from her mundane life as a postal worker in Atlanta to pursue her life’s dream of being an artist. She has also discovered that her talents as a dancer afford her an income at the Casino, a recreation center primarily for senior citizens in Gulfport, Florida. Ruth has established quite a reputation as a swing dance instructor, a reputation that has reached swing dance enthusiast, Aaron Green, a Jewish Cornell University student who is literally and figuratively travelling on his own journey. Aaron stops in Gulfport to meet Ruth and take lessons from her. They hit it off; however, during their interactions they discover a disturbing historical connection. Ruth Adams is the grandniece of Newt Lee, the black man who was initially accused of killing the little white girl, Mary Phagen in the sensational and infamous Leo Frank case in Atlanta, GA in 1914. On the other hand, Aaron reveals that he is a distant cousin of Leo Frank, who became the only Jewish person known to have been lynched on American soil for the same crime. With these dual revelations, their alliance is drastically affected and the rest of the play explores their unique Jewish–African American association.

A timely exploration of race and racial interactions in the south. Set in Greater Birmingham, Alabama in 2013, Marianne Williams and Mary-Lou LeBlanc, each have histories, though very divergent histories, in the Birmingham Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. As White and African American natives of Birmingham respectively, they continue to reflect clear racial perspectives and even now clash over racial issues as they meet for the first time. Their 14 year old daughters, Nzinga Williams and Collette LeBlanc, are collaborating on a school project to commemorate one of the most significant events of the Civil Rights movement, the 50th anniversary of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing that killed four Black girls and injured 22 others. The girls are convening at the LeBlanc home in Cherokee Spring Village, an affluent white suburb of Birmingham, to finalize and rehearse their skit. Their project and the attitudes of their respective mothers demonstrate that the racial past, even in the age of Obama, is not yet dead, but through new visions of the youth, including the friendship of their brothers, neither is hope.

A three-act drama, focuses on four near middle-aged African American women, friends since high school who returning to Atlanta for a surprise celebration of Carmen’s fortieth birthday as they also “sister” her through the advanced stages of breast cancer.

While the focus is not hair, its importance to black women is far from ignored. Carmen, undergoing chemotherapy, is bald; Deborah, the play’s main character, dyes her hair platinum blond in empty protest, then shaves her head in sympathetic support of Carmen. A major tension revolves around the sisterhood and their mothers coping with Carmen’s cancer and anticipating her death. Another source of tension is Deborah’s alcoholism, to which no one has wanted to admit. These tensions erupt at the climatic surprise party, which becomes an intense battleground. Carmen demonstrates the depth of true friendship by sublimating her own sickness and fear of dying in order to give attention to Deborah and her illness.

Based on a true story, this play explores the life of Amanda America Dickson from her conception from the rape of her enslaved mother by the son of her white slave owner to her rise as the wealthiest woman in America (by virtue if the estate of her white father) and the first enslaved woman to find victory in the Supreme Court of Georgia.

Rory Freeman and his parents have just moved into a new home and are slowly furnishing it. Rory’s
mother has purchased a large antique dining table instead of the dinette set originally agreed upon by
both his parents. His father is upset and determined to return the antique the following day. However, his
parents permit him to use the table as a fort for this one night and Rory spends the night under it.
Overnight, Rory encounters magical moments when the past comes to the present and he is witness to a
pre-Civil War scene that explains the history of his name and the actions of one of his ancestors.

92 year old Papa (Beauregard McClendon) is stricken with COVID and his daughter, niece and several of his 18 former foster children rally to support him recognizing that COVID has wreaked deathly havoc on the elderly community. His support system constitutes a village of care givers not only for Papa but for each other as these "villagers" go through various encounters and challenges themselves, practically all precipitated in some way by COVID. The play also exemplifies the dependence on technology during the era of COVID as, during the pandemic, people, who are not in lockdown, are required to wear masks, maintain a social distance of at least six feet and adhere to other protocols that prevent much personal connection. Nearly all the interactions in the play are conducted through a multitude of tech devices to an extent that technology emerges as a “virtual” character in the play. For the limited number of times, characters are actually on the stage, characters do adhere to COVID protocols.