candi dugas

An unexpected gathering of five Black men of different ages in the mid-late 1980s becomes a sacred circle to hold their truths. As a community (rather than an audience), we experience their individual + collective release and restoration. This circle is ancestral, ancient, and a safer space for their long-guarded stories which have been misunderstood (if grasped at all) + dismissed. This circle will be where they are witnessed + supported without interruption or judgment.

Each man brings a different wound: the burden of myths, the weight of public expectation, the scars of faith and having loved, and the excruciating ache of navigating realities that demand silence -- emotional + otherwise. As they speak, we listen not for confessions, but clarifications — truths that reveal the human, spiritual, and cultural forces shaping their choices.

Through this ritual of conversation + revelation … the men dismantle social narratives that have distorted their identities. What emerges is a portrait of Black manhood that is nuanced, vulnerable, and thus, liberatory. By the end, they stand in a clearer light (and hopefully fully seen with compassion + utmost understanding) — no longer defined by accusations or unspoken tensions within their people (or themselves) — but defined by the truths of their own lives.

My Side of the Story invites community to bear witness to the healing power of sacred circles with spoken truth, the quiet parts out loud, and then that of being fully seen + heard toward the possibility of a hopeful future full of renewed relationships.

Written to be adaptive to each community. MSOS is an immersive audience experience where they are part of the circle, and at its conclusion, they contribute their thoughts, and how they are experiencing the men's stories.

(The concept of this series inspired the devising of Black fathers' stories for Morehouse College's Fathers Matter ATL.)

Creole Shop Owner Sydney Augustin is slow to calculate the ancestral economics of being Black and successful in the tiny southwest Georgia town of Prairie Hills. It’s just that the pull to relocate there was so persistent … yet peculiar … while also somehow familiar. Then comes the summer following 45's presidential election. Sydney finally realizes that her perfect small-town experience requires from her parts of her past that she thought would no longer be necessary — powerful parts, conjuring parts like memories of her grandmother that somehow also intersect with Prairie Hills’ most powerful woman. However, if she does not reclaim her own power, and quickly, she'll lose more than her business … and her dreams.

Walter and Charlotte's chance meeting during a thunderstorm on an unseasonably warm fall day transports us back in time to the 1950s as the struggle for Civil Rights is about to explode in a flurry of demonstrations, sparked by a resistance to segregated buses in the American south.

They'd been friends since forever. After one phone call, all of that changed. How do they go on from there?