Courtesy Long Wharf Theatre
Miller, Mississippi, the new play by Boo Killabrew that opens Long Wharf Theatre’s second annual Contemporary American Voices festival this Friday evening, comes with a lot of baggage.
Two years before Killabrew even thought about bringing a work to New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre, she had a problem.
It was almost summer 2014, the 50th anniversary of the 1964 Freedom Summer, in her home state of Mississippi, and Killabrew wasn’t sure how to begin writing on a subject that still felt so fresh.
She pored over research and primary source material. She asked her Delta- and Jackson-born parents, whom she had always seen as open-minded, more questions about their childhoods. And then she asked herself a question: What if she could follow a family in Jackson, Miss. — a family steeped in traditional Southern values, from congealed salad and cotillion dances to segregated schools and black housekeepers — from 1960 to 1990? What strange truths, what rigidity in the face of change, might that narrative reveal?
As the first of three works that will be performed as staged readings — works intended to shed light on of-the-moment issues and the young playwrights who are bringing them to the fore — Miller, Mississippi follows the five-member, Caucasian Miller family and their black servant, Doris, through major steps in integration, voting rights, and 30 years of white-on-black protest. For Killabrew, the festival is a chance to talk about these still-evolving works, and the topics that spurred them.
“I’m interested in what we are looking at after this incredibly violent and hate-filled time,” she said in an interview last week. “I feel like we’re still looking at it, trying to pick up the pieces. I love where I’m from, but I feel like there’s these pockets of anger there. It’s all about entitlement … whenever people are disenfranchised, when they feel like something’s being taken away from them, crazy things will come out of their mouth.”
That’s also true for fellow playwrights Clare Barron and Jeff Augustin, whose works Dance Nation and The Last Tiger in Haiti will run on Saturday. Transitioning from Southern racism to irreverent, misbehaving dance students and non-Western folkloric traditions, the plays are meant to challenge notions of what is conventional or prestigious to see on stage — and to encourage discussion about contemporary theater long after the weekend has passed. As Long Wharf’s new Literary Manager Christine Scarfuto said, that kind of variety and talk is what the festival is all about.
“I think that new plays can be a little scary — you’re taking a risk and you don’t know if it’s going to be good or not,” she said. The festival “introduces new plays to audiences in different ways that doesn’t feel threatening … it shows them all the forms that new plays can take, the incredibly beautiful and accessible stories inside them. Being able to support new writers is kind of the lifeblood of theater.” Scarfuto intends to grow the festival to four or five plays over the next few years.
“I think this event is a way for us to do plays that are are a little different,” she added. “The writers are all younger, writing really exciting stuff, and we’re making this really fun … hoping to bring in the more adventurous audience members that might not usually be interested in seeing a play, but also engaging our established audience members by showing them new work.”
Part of that involves enriching the festival’s atmosphere with local beer and food tastings. The hope, Scarfuto said, is that attendees feel like they can stay a while, talk to the playwrights, have some meaningful discussion, and become part of the workshopping process.
Killabrew said that that kind of approach excited her. “I want us to have these conversations,” she said. “We’re not done. We have to keep talking about it … it should be healthy, and vibrant and uncomfortable.”
The staged readings in Long Wharf’s Contemporary American Voices Festival runs Sep. 9 and 10 at Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Dr. Click here for more information.