EPISODE 5

+ TRANSCRIPT

ARMINDA THOMAS

Hey, everybody, welcome back to the CLASSIX podcast, (re)clamation, an intervention in the current conversation around theatre history, where we recenter and uplift the Black writers and storytellers of the American theatre - both the celebrated and the forgotten. I’m Arminda Thomas, your substitute host for this episode, number 5 in our series exploring the life, work, and legacy of Alice Childress. In our last episode we focused on a single production, Wedding Band, which was presented last spring at Theater for a New Audience. Today we're going to expand our scope while filtering our lens and talk about directing Childress’s works. Joining me for this conversation are four amazing, phenomenal directors. Nicole A. Watson, who is currently the Associate Artistic Director at the McCarter Theatre; Jade King Carroll who is the newly appointed Producing Artistic Director of the Chautauqua Theatre Company; and two familiar voices, CLASSIX members Awoye Timpo and Dominique Rider. Welcome to the podcast, y'all.

AWOYE TIMPO Thank you.

DOMINIQUE RIDER Thank you for having us.

NICOLE A. WATSON Thank you for having us.

ARMINDA THOMAS And especially welcome to Jade and Nicole, I think this is your first your first appearance here. And we are happy to welcome you to the CLASSIX family. So, we're going to talk about directing Childress. Jade, you directed Trouble in Mind at Two River Theater in 2014, which makes you, in this group, the senior Childress director. And I want to point that out because everyone else that we're talking about directed readings in 2021. So I think that's an interesting juxtaposition because we've been talking about this boom of Childress, but I think it's important to recognize that the work began before the boom. I want to start actually talking about how you came to Childress?

JADE CARROLL Absolutely, thank you so much. First of all, it is a pleasure to be here, and to meet you and to be in conversation. Always great to be in conversation with Awoye and Nicole. And about Childress. I have been looking forward to this conversation. I, you know, I don't remember when I first came to Childress. So I found Wedding Band, probably in the library in college. Honestly, like, I don't remember how I came across it. I just remember experiencing it. And then being hungry for more. And Trouble in Mind is one of my favorite plays. It's just.. it’s just one of my favorite plays. I was 33 when I directed that, and it felt like I had waited a lifetime already for someone to allow me into that play. I can't believe it's been that long. But yeah, that was my first way in. And hungrily directing it in 2014.

ARMINDA THOMAS And, Nicole, can you tell us how did you come to meet Childress?

NICOLE A. WATSON Yeah, I feel similar. Like, I'm not exactly sure. I suspect it was later in my life, actually. But like, I feel like there's always for me, there’s some authors, like I can't remember the exact person who said, “go find this book, go read this play, go do this now.” For other writers, and I suspect it's this way with Childress, it's like a convergence. My mom was a school librarian, and my mom's the one who was always like, handing me the book reviews and the books, you know, that she really wanted me to read I still have the notepad that has like, “author equals, title equals.” And so if I would read about somebody or hear about someone, or someone would tell me about someone, I would have this running list. And at some point, that list and a book on my bookshelf would finally, like, meet up again, you know? Like, I'd be like, “Oh, I finally got that book!” And so I see the book jacket of her plays. And I don't remember when I bought it, I don't remember when someone told me to read it. But I do remember reading her plays later in my life when I started to, I guess, pursue and read theater more diligently? You know, I was a history teacher for the first part of my adult life, so most of my, you know, coming to theater and then coming to Black women playwrights was much later in my life. But the same sort of, like, hunger and desire and attraction that Jade articulated, you know, which was this sort of, like, “Where have you been all my life? Where have you been? When can I do this?” You know, that sort of feeling. But I suspect, probably because of my mom and my library brain, I was a kind of collector of the books. And every once in a while, that, you know, book would already be on the shelf and it was just a matter of myself and the bookshelf sort of catching up. And then finally getting to do a reading. Yeah.

ARMINDA THOMAS I think it's really fascinating that a lot of conversations, when we talk to people, that they come to Childress later in life. So I love, Jade, that you come fairly early. I mean... college is fairly early for us. What college were you at? Just curiosity.

JADE CARROLL You know, I was at SUNY New Paltz. I went to a state school and had a wonderful education. It provided it allowed me to kind of be very active in forming, you know, the New Paltz History Players. I was the historian. And so, active and producing plays and turning like an art gallery to an art gallery to a black box. And that, and I started– I wanted to do Ma Rainey. My first– this might be when I found that we didn't have enough Black students in my program to cast it– and then I ended up doing The Death of Bessie Smith by Edward Albee, and going to the music department, even for that, to find; to cast a drummer and to find the cast. And it might have been in that beginning search to find the stories that I wanted to tell that I came across Childress there was like one multiculturalism class, “Multiculturalism in the Theater,” you got Hansberry and you got a little August Wilson– and it was a great class– and Marisol, but that was it. You had to go to the shelf and find more.

ARMINDA THOMAS Awoye, I know we talked about you coming to Wedding Band but I don't remember if we've talked about you meeting Childress in this podcast.

AWOYE TIMPO I feel like, similarly to Jade and Nicole, I can't quite pinpoint the first moment, but I do feel like just in conversation in theater rooms, like her name was kind of just in the air. And I did have the great pleasure of seeing Jade's production of Trouble in Mind in 2014. And that was the first Childress production I ever saw, which was amazing. It was so incredibly good. Well, obviously because it's Jade. Did Brenda Pressley play...?

JADE CARROLL That cast. It was McKinley Belcher, Amira Vann, Steven Skybell, Jonathan David Martin, Roger Robinson, Brenda Pressley. That cast was so much fun to dig into Childress with and just the way that play is written with the the generations of theatre-makers and, you know, truth. That line from that play: truth. That kind of encapsulates it.

ARMINDA THOMAS And how did it come to Two River?

JADE CARROLL I cannot honestly answer that, I know that I had been in conversations with a couple of theaters, because OSF was like, “Trouble in Mind or The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window?” and I was like, “Trouble in Mind!” and that didn't pan out. And so I was talking about it with a couple of different theaters.

ARMINDA THOMAS And what was the experience? How many people in your cast knew Alice Childress?

JADE CARROLL Well, Roger Robinson, of course, knew Alice Childress, which was great. Both Brenda Pressley, who was amazing–and Roger, were familiar with Childress. Roger had done readings of it before, so he was really excited. Actually, I did it again. I was like, I shopped this play. I did it again at PlayMakers Rep, like a year or two later. I just love this play so much. And Roger called me and said, “So I hear you're doing our play again. I assume I'll be doing my part.” So I got to do it twice with Roger, and Kathy Perkins did the lights for me down in North Carolina.

JADE CARROLL That comes with doing a Childress confirms kind of why we do theater. Why I do theater, I should say. That convening of artists that she writes the people into her plays, and then the subject matter. And the, just, detailed, honest truth.

ARMINDA THOMAS Love that. And you got to do in-person, like real-life on a stage Childress twice.

JADE CARROLL Which was great because it was really fulfilling to do it twice. And especially, I had the same scenic designer too– and Karen Perry, I had the same scenic designer, the same costume designer, the same Sheldon. Um, and it went from a proscenium to a thrust. So it was real– and the thrust I actually preferred, it was kind of like, “Where do you put the table?” we're always met with our best selves when we're challenged. So that was keeping it truthful, and not changing anything just to change it. But moving it further, bringing it right into the audience in the South was great. And, with the students. So the generational learning was even further exemplified.

ARMINDA THOMAS And Nicole, you did a reading of Florence.

NICOLE A. WATSON We did a Zoom, filmed reading of Florence for Baltimore, Center Stage. They have a Bridge Series where they explore classic texts, which, you know, I'm sure prior to 2021, they were in-person. And so they said, you know, “We still want to do this,” and “We had always planned to do Florence. And we'd like to turn it into a recording on Zoom,” And, you know, “are you free to do it?” And I was like, “of course.” So we did, you know, we spent about a week, you know, clicking the link and working on the play. And then I think it was on Baltimore Center Stage’s website, perhaps for a week or two, I don't remember how long– and so people had access to it. And I think they curated a conversation around it, it was part of their own series around how they discuss and bring classical texts back into, you know, the present moment. So it was really exciting to have some time with that play; with Childress.

ARMINDA THOMAS And Florence was already on the schedule? Was that a pre-pandemic schedule for Florence?

NICOLE A. WATSON As far as I know, it was. I think it was like, ‘Our plan was to do this, our plan is still to do this, rather than not do it. Can we move it to Zoom? And can you do this on Zoom?’ And I was like, “gladly.”I had all Baltimore actors, and with any great script, getting to dig into a play, that's the best part, you know, and so that first read and the sort of like, “Wow, oh my god, you know, this... Childress’s writing, you know,” like that, that sort of awe that I think you get after getting to hear it for the first time; getting to be with a group of people that you've never worked with before, and you all are holding, handling something so beautiful, and smart. And so like, invaluable right?

ARMINDA THOMAS Yeah. And Dominique, I want to bring you into this conversation. You directed a reading of Wine in the Wilderness for Roundabout. And do you know how that came about?

DOMINIQUE RIDER Yeah, Roundabout had a new program for Early Career directors and a Director’s Group to go along with their fellowship, and I was in it. And one of the points of it was that they were bringing in established directors to talk to more early career directors. There were a lot of meetings where there were, you know, older directors who were talking about Shakespeare, and were talking about doing classic plays and doing Arthur Miller and all that stuff that people care about more than me. And one of the, sort of, big points that I kept, like, trying to pursue is like, I, for me, right? Like I'm not trying to make, in the way some people are trying to make Shakespeare relevant to the “now”, I don't have to make Alice Childress relevant than to the “now”– she's already there. The biggest, sort of, hurdle sometimes, is just like, how do you make Jive fit into the mouths of contemporary– like of Black actors who are alive right now, right? And the answer is, you leave it alone, and it works, and it does what it needs to do sometimes. And so every other week, I would just be pestering Roundabout about Alice Childress in those meetings one way or another. And then the shutdown happens, the Refocus Project happens. And they asked me to direct Wine in the Wilderness.

ARMINDA THOMAS And what was the Refocus Project?

DOMINIQUE RIDER The Refocus Project was– is, I should say– an initiative by Roundabout to spotlight works by marginalized writers throughout history. The year I did it, it was Black American writers, I believe last year or this year was Latine writers from not-Spain.

ARMINDA THOMAS Awoye, you also did Trouble in Mind in 2021. Can you talk about how that came to be? And with A.C.T in San Francisco?

AWOYE TIMPO Once COVID shut everything down, A.C.T was trying to figure out what programming they would do and what plays they would share. And so, they had a series of, I think, three online readings. And so they reached out because I had just done another play in the Bay Area, when everything shut down. So I was kind of working in that area with that community. And so they reached out and said, “Hey, would you direct this reading of Trouble in Mind?” But hilariously, actually, I don't know how much they knew about CLASSIX, and about all the work that we had been doing around Trouble in Mind. Arminda was our dramaturg. And we got on the phone, and we're telling them all about all the Childress thinking that we've been doing, which was really, really exciting. Similar to Nicole, we had like four days to rehearse. And every day, we're just like, “This play is so extraordinary. We just want more and more time to be inside it.” I feel like when you're inside of a Childress play, you're just like, “Oh my gosh, there's more. There's just so much more in here.” And you just want to keep exploding it open to see what you can find in every single moment. And it was actually really fun too, because we actually also had a scenic designer. So Jason Ardizzone-West was our scenic designer for the reading also. And we just had such a fantastic cast. But I think, definitely, the thing that we left with was, like Jade was saying about directing Trouble In Mind multiple times, like, you just want to do it more. You feel like you just want more. It's so... every moment is so good. It was a totally thrilling experience. And I don't know, Arminda, you can probably speak to that experience as well.

ARMINDA THOMAS In full transparency– I also dramaturged the Roundabout reading, and Wine in The Wilderness, and Wedding Band. So I'm just fascinated by the approaches to directing that happen. Awoye has very strong scenic sensibility. Because that is very important to an Awoye Timpo story. Whereas I think, Dominique, I'm not gonna characterize your directing, but it feels very much more about the give and the take, and the back and the forth. Right? So it's really really heavily focused on who's saying what and how it's going on. Did we see art? For Wine in the Wilderness?

DOMINIQUE RIDER Yeah, that was the only thing we saw. And the thing about that is, it was just a reading. So it's like, how does the language sound? And Awoye, you experienced this with Wedding Band, right? How does the language sound to someone who's never heard this play before? How do you help them enter in a way that it’s as easy as possible?

ARMINDA THOMAS Yeah, I want to open it up for anybody to answer as it comes to them as you were working on it– what was the thing that was most surprising to you?

JADE CARROLL The first thing that popped in my mind was that not everybody at the table knew some of the things that I took for granted. Not just Childress, but like Emmett Till.

ARMINDA THOMAS Right.

JADE CARROLL In my mind, that was really surprising. I take it for granted. I love history. And we're all in theater, and it's all, especially for the people of color, it's our history. And I bring a lot of images, and kind of... text and– especially for period pieces– I like to kind of cover the walls with [material] to place us where we are. I started this with Ruben, going to the boards and kind of pulling some things. So, going to the wall and pulling a quote or something.

JADE CARROLL The context of the plays was a surprise. There's a quote early on in the Childress... “I deal with the people I know best, which are ordinary people.” That first quote in the book she celebrates the ordinary people.

ARMINDA THOMAS I think that that is an experience as a dramaturg that I try not to be surprised by. But it can be surprising how much history you take for granted and how much you feel like you've had, like, a common education. Even the inequalities in our theater industry being a surprise, or the: “Is it really that bad?” Like some of those conversations. “Well is that...? We're all sensitive in this and is that really what's bad?” That was kind of like, “Oh!” The meta of doing Trouble in Mind. Yeah, yeah.

NICOLE A. WATSON I have a very strong memory of when I saw– I will bring it back to Childress– But when I saw Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Appropriate, and there's the line in the play, “Who’s Emmett Till? And the, (gasp) from the audience, the shock in the audience I was with that night, at that statement, right? Like, there was a kind of like, collective horror. Like who didn’t know? And that's why that line was so like, “Oh, my goodness,” but the reminder that that's a real statement, right? You know, and what do we know, and what don't we know? And I think, like, isn't the point of all of this to share some thing, right? Are there things that I think we should all know? Yes. But also, then, isn't this the case for why these plays, by necessity, have– must have– a place in the world? So that we can all start to know some things that we don't know. And then the other plays that people write will become a knowledge base for me, so I can know some things that I don't know, right? So that I don't remain someone who doesn't know things or learn things about the world, you know? Because of varying education systems, circumstances, whatever, that kept me from not knowing something, you know? But Childress, Childress, something surprising... In Florence, it is a white northerner who, kind of, shows herself, you know? Especially doing it in the moment, we were doing it. It's that conversation about the white liberal. And it's not okay to just be like, “All bad things happen in the south. All bad ideas. All racism happens in the South.” Right? And so, the thing that was sort of exciting about the way in which Childress dropped that woman into the play, and when she did, right? Because the play... that woman is not the center of the play, right? So I also want to be clear: the white northern woman is not at all the center of that play, or the focus of the play. But the way she enters it, she makes her own sort of Northern ideals known in the world and that was something that I think, for the cast, was not what they were expecting, right? Like when she walked in the room, I think the expectation was that she was going to be a southern white woman with her southern white assumptions. And that was going to be the conversation and the way the play was going to go. And so I think maybe the greatest surprise is that Childress defied all of our expectations on what the play was going to do,

ARMINDA THOMAS Right, because the central conflict, in Florence– for our listeners– is; there's an older woman who is going up north. Her daughter has been trying to become an actress, and the feeling is that they just can't keep supporting this. She's not really doing what she had hoped to do, and her sister– the siblings around would like her to stop. [They] would like her mom to go and bring her to her senses and bring her home. And then she runs into this woman who is a performer and seems very sympathetic, but then turns out to also have a very limited idea of what this woman could be. And that conversation spurs the mother to double down on her support for her daughter rather than going to get her. Which is a nice turn too.

NICOLE A. WATSON Yeah, it's like the mother sees this woman's lack of imagination for who her daughter can be in the world and for who Black people can be in the world. And basically is like, “Well, screw that. I'm not bringing my daughter back here to serve this limited view of her.” And she writes her a letter and says, “Keep trying.”

ARMINDA THOMAS Keep trying, yes.

NICOLE A. WATSON Keep trying. Yeah.

ARMINDA THOMAS Dominique?

DOMINIQUE RIDER Yeah, I think the way that, in Wine in the Wilderness specifically, the way that Tommy gets to defy the expectations of not only the class expectations, but the geographic expectations of the people she comes in contact with, right? I think the thing about Childress that always surprises me, as a Southerner, is the way that she cares deeply about the South. And the way that the sort of Northern expectations of what it means to be those people over there, what it means to be from this other sort of, oftentimes “backwards” or like “downtrodden place” are not true. And so, in Wine in the Wilderness, specifically watching Tommy, this woman with this thick Southern accent– really be the person who is the holder of history, the holder of knowledge, the holder of things you cannot find in books, was really exciting. And I think, you know, in some ways, been the case. [laughs] Because I feel like since moving to the north, this sort of contempt for all things Southern and simultaneously, specifically Black southern people, really disturbs me. And so it's always so good to be in Childress’ world because of how much she loves the south and southern people. And that really means a lot to me. ARMINDA THOMAS Awoye? AWOYE TIMPO The thing that's coming to mind, actually, is the humor. I think the thing that surprised me, especially working on; first Trouble in Mind, and then Wedding Band, is just how funny Alice Childress is. She's hilarious! And there's just so many lines that she just pops in, and you're like dying. I'm, like, thinking about Sheldon's line, like in Trouble in Mind: “Am I still whittling a stick?” And I don't know what you all feel, because you all work on a lot of contemporary plays, too– it's hard to write humor in that way. And it's so subtle and so hilarious. I just feel like she's talking about so many profound things, but you know? She's got a great sense of humor.

JADE CARROLL I so agree about the humor– and that, like, each act of that play kind of works differently. And then you have the physical humor of actually staging that. I don't think I've ever had so much fun with a stage door. But I sent it to a friend, and he was like, “Who's Alice? I haven't met Alice.” He thought it was a new play. A contemporary aspect. He just read it, and was like, “This is hilarious! Who wrote this? How haven’t I met her?” That always stuck with me because it does feel so contemporary.

AWOYE TIMPO Can I just say– very quick sidebar– because Jade brought up her dramaturgy. Jade dramaturgy is like... it's not a game. I just want to say this for all the directors out there who are trying to figure out how to root their actors in the world of the play. Jade comes with, like, color-coded, huge Paperboards with just so many images. Like she just fills the room with images. And it's so masterful and beautiful. And I love that actually all the– Nicole, Jade, Dominique also– everybody's a dramaturg and historian as well as a director, which I think is kind of amazing.

JADE CARROLL It's probably– thank you very much. I have great joy in it. And I think it helps me, as well, get deeper in. But it's probably what we all have in common and being so attracted to Childress too? Besides it just being great theater, is that, all of the dramaturgical layers and history.

NICOLE A. WATSON And I'm curious, like, if you didn't do some of the dramaturgy and do all that deep dive, could you find the humor in the play? Like, would you be able to do that kind of deep digging, or would you just read it and have a different read of the play if you didn't have the sort of historical understanding and dramaturgical context for when and how she was writing, you know? I think, that's why the dramaturgy is so necessary. Looking at all those images and photos and everything, it's my favorite part. Like it's so glorious. I do love the humor. Like in Florence, one of the first exchanges between the mother and the northern woman is about the fact that the northern white woman's brother has written this novel about the ‘tragic mulatto,’ and the mother is, like, listening to the ending. And then she's just like, I mean, she's horrified, because clearly, the brother has not written a real Black woman. That's so obvious. But she's like, with anticipation, she's like, “What's her shame? What’s the book about? I'm so curious, this could be a good book,” you know? And then when she hears what the book’s about, you just sort of like, you can just see her like, in my mind's eye, like just recede to be like, “What kind of crap is that?” And the way in which you see her trying to break out of the social construct that says, “I'm not allowed to tell you that book sounds like garbage,” right? “But I also have to tell you, no Black person I know would do that. That's not a real person.” That too, is a fiction. All of this is a fiction, you know? And I think that's the like meta-meta, sort of, of that play. Is that like, in it is literally this Black mother being like, “This is all a fiction. This segregated train station. This imagined tragic mulatto, who feels bad about being Black... that she's not white.” Like, fiction, fiction, fiction, you know? And then, just sits squarely in being like, “this Black woman who's like, ‘the real thing is I'm gonna tell my daughter to, to keep trying.’” You know, and I just, I just love that, you know? And there's, it's funny. And it's funny.

ARMINDA THOMAS I think one of the great things about that for me is that it's her first play, that– according to, according to her own statements, and those who were around at the time, she wrote it kind of on the fly. And yet, it has everything that she's going to keep talking about. Everything is in there. It's that... the desire to break out of being boxed into somebody else's fiction, AND, also; the ways we sometimes box one another in. So you have the sister, who is trying to box her sister in who is saying, “this is ridiculous” for another reason. And somehow, hearing that outside voice gets the mother to go, “Oh, no. Not me too. I am not going to be the one who does what the world is already doing.” And so, she's already talking about our responsibility to one another in the face of the ways allyship, or people who think they're sympathetic, aren't. And so, we are responsible for one another; we are responsible not to do that to each other. That's my interpretation. But I really, I think that it continues, that it is something that she just keeps exploring. And it's all there in Florence, which is not a long play. But it is just, it's just that deep already. I just think that's so amazing about that piece.

JADE CARROLL And that she stood by it. She walked the walk. You know, just the way she lived her life; that she was so protective of her personal life. She wrote about all these masks that we wore– that was that beautiful Dunbar poem that, like, kind of encapsulates how she... but she was so aware of how everybody worked, maybe because her education was more found through curiosity and she stood in defiance– forward defiance– of being put in any of those boxes or made to wear any of those masks. And just the fact that she was the first at so many things. I mean, she's obviously just a hero. She was just an honest artist; a pioneer as a Black woman; and funny?! And just as talented as an actress; as a writer; as a director; as a novelist. Yeah. Didn't we do Wine in the Wilderness? With, like, a reading?

ARMINDA THOMAS Yes, you directed the reading for CLASSIX in the CLASSIX Reading Series, right?

JADE CARROLL Yeah, I think was like Charles Weldon?

AWOYE TIMPO Yeah! That's right. What also makes this super special was Nicole and Jade, There were four in the first ever CLASSIX convening. We did four plays, and Jade did one, Nicole did one, I did one and Seret did one. That was our quartet. So this is actually kind of amazing on that level, too. And yes, Jade did Wine in the Wilderness, that's right, that's right!

JADE CARROLL Like a one day thing.

ARMINDA THOMAS So basically, it's a reunion.

AWOYE TIMPO Yeah.

ARMINDA THOMAS I love a reunion. It's a CLASSIX reunion.

AWOYE TIMPO Yeah.

ARMINDA THOMAS We're, we're about to wrap up, I’d just like to hear from each of you; is there another Childress piece– you are anxious to direct? Or that you want to spend some more time in, or that you want to start exploring?

JADE CARROLL I mean, all of them. I just found Mojo and String at Drama Bookshop, and I hadn't read them. I got so excited, that, you know, I'll read that on the plane early next week. But; all of them.

NICOLE A. WATSON Yeah, I just want to read more of them, you know. You have on your website, all the plays, she's written, so, you know, Sea Island Song sounds quite beautiful. I would love to take a look at that. I think it's really amazing that you're providing a way for all of us to encounter slash re-encounter; discuss; share; talk about these artists that, like really means a lot to us. I think it's really important. Yeah. And then we get to share it with everybody else.

DOMINIQUE RIDER For me, Trouble in Mind, obviously. I think that that play... there are a lot of philosophical questions I think that play poses that I really want to spend a lot of time digging into. And then, she has an unpublished play called A Host of Friends that, for me, is about the failures of the Rainbow Coalition, post the execution of Fred Hampton. And I really, as someone who has a lot of questions about coalition politics, that play really excites me.

AWOYE TIMPO I’ll say- Gosh, all of them definitely. Definitely excited and eager to jump into Trouble in Mind. But, you know, the thing that Dominique and Arminda and I have been chatting a lot about is, some of the plays that are either unpublished, or were unfinished, or we don't have all the full materials for them– like Sea Island Song, Gullah, like Gold Through the Trees– you know, so we've been in a conversation to about how to take things that exist, but were not complete, and what does it mean to create something new. And I think one of the beautiful things about Childress, and we found this on Wedding Band, is that there's actually a lot of times where she has talked a lot about things. Like we have a lot of interviews, we have a lot of writings. So even though she was not physically in the room on Wedding Band, like, I really felt like we had her energy and her presence and her voice in the room with us. So I’m excited to think about these other plays that were unfinished, and how we can continue to bring her voice into the process as we think about what it can be. That's really exciting.

ARMINDA It's so good to spend this time with all of you; Jade, Nicole, thank you for coming into this process and sharing this time with us. Awoye, Dominique; thank y'all for... well, y'all were voluntold. But thank you. But thank you for another morning. It's always good to spend it with you. And thank you, listeners. Next week, Dominique will take the reins again to wrap up our Childress arc. For more information on Alice Childress’s plays, please visit our catalog at theclassix.org and follow us on Twitter and Instagram. This episode was produced by CLASSIX. Our sound editor is Aubrey Dube. The theme song was composed by Alphonso Horne. See you next week!