LOS ANGELES — Two actresses rotate roles in “Lines in the Dust,” taking turns playing two women who could have been sisters under different circumstances.
“You lied to me,” Principal Long says.
“I lied to them,” Denitra insists.
“No, you lied to me.”
The play, currently running at The Matrix Theatre, may center around a lie, but it’s really about a pervasive truth that exists across the country — a vast inequity in educational opportunities.
It’s something director Desean K. Terry experienced firsthand.
“The sacrifice that my mom gave in order to get me to attend that better school,” he explained. “Then also the conversation of when you attend that better school, are you the only person of color in that school?”
Growing up in Los Angeles, he attended a youth acting program at the nonprofit Amazing Grace Conservatory which has a list of impressive alumni like Issa Rae, Ashton Sanders and Nikkole Salter.
“Her fancy title is Pulitzer Prize nominated playwright, Nikkole Salter, who is also my friend!” Terry said. “We are basically two kids who grew up in Los Angeles together.”
Despite her nomination, Salter had never had one of the plays she wrote as a solo playwright produced in her hometown.
“I felt like that was such a profound injustice,” Terry said, and as the artistic director of Collaborative Artis Bloc, he knew he had to change that.
The play stars Kelly Jenrette and Erica Tazel who swap roles depending on the performance calendar. Denitra is a mother who lies about her address to get her daughter into a better school.
“I want her to know she meets the highest standards,” the character says, defending the deception to Principal Long when the truth comes out.
“It’s illegal, Denitra,” Long says about the falsified address. “It’s a crime.”
“This beautiful play talks about segregation, but it investigates it through the lens of school redistricting,” Terry explained. “It’s a conversation that we’re having constantly in all areas of community, but particularly within the Black community.”
This production itself is very much a community effort. Sophina Brown is the founder and executive director of Support Black Theatre, a nonprofit organization working to advance Black theatres and Black artists. The idea grew out of her own experience being repeatedly denied the rights to produce Black plays.
“This happens in Los Angeles, but it also happens just nationally that the majority of professionally produced Black work happens inside predominantly white institutions,” she said. “When I asked other Black producers, seeing if they had had similar experiences, the stories were just really disheartening in terms of how difficult it was for us to tell our own stories.”
The programs take a three-pronged approach. The New Works Pipeline focuses on reading, developing and mounting productions of new plays.
“We pay all of the artists involved, including the playwright,” Brown explained. “That’s been really impactful and has allowed us to employ over 100 black artists just with that program alone.”
Another program, Talk Forward, is designed to cultivate and engage Black audiences. The final program, Equip, works to support Black theatre through management courses and grant writing education.
“And through that program, we have been able to help Black theaters in Los Angeles raise nearly $1 million,” Brown pointed out.
This production represents what the theatre makers see as an innovation approach that involves the community in fostering new works. Collaborative Artist Bloc and Support Black Theatre partnered with over 40 Black businesses who Terry and Brown say contributed to the conversation around and creation of this production.
They see this community-supported method as a potentially major shift in the Black theatre space, that Terry says is at a “very exciting juncture.”
“And we’re saying, what does our community need in order to advance the cause of Black Theatre in Los Angeles,” he said, “and hopefully, you know, we’re doing something that actually impacts the national conversations as well.”
Erasing a line that they say has stood in the way of Black theatre makers for far too long.