Thunder Bay Theatre from Alpena started a social injustice project to help spread awareness about topics like race, gender and sexuality.
The theatre partnered with Central Michigan University’s theater program to perform a staged reading of Clybourne Park, a theatrical response to A Raisin in the Sun.
The play, by Bruce Norris, starts by highlighting race relations in a neighborhood in 1950s Chicago in the first act. The second act takes place in the same neighborhood in 2009. The play brings forth ideas about gentrification and housing inequalities in present day.
About a dozen people were in attendance at the reading. Kai Cadenas-DeLancey was one of the few to listen to the production.
“I’m a little surprised that I’m the youngest person in this audience, but I think that’s kind of cool that people in Mount Pleasant are willing to hear this conversation,” Cadenas-DeLancey said.
The topics discussed in the play made everyone in attendance uncomfortable, including the cast. CMU theater student Yasmen Duncan said this is meant to make everyone question their role in society.
“For... the cast members, it also makes them think, this is what my character is doing. How am I the same, how am I different? And also what am I contributing to the wider issue and conversation,” Duncan said.
Part of the production includes a discussion between cast and audience members following the conclusion of the play. This is called a talkback.
Molly Stricker, the co-director and creator of the social injustice project, said most of the time, people leave a play and are left with their own thoughts, but this setup is different given the difficulty of the topics addressed in the play.
“With the talkback, you can say, I felt this and did anyone else feel this way; am I the only one? This play made me think of this thing that happened to me, or how do we take what we saw in this play and use it to affect our lives moving forward,” Stricker said.
When CMU and Thunder Bay Theatre partnered up for this project, it was a way to connect the two communities to tell the larger issues.
Annette Thornton, PhD, is the co-director of the production and an associate professor of theater at CMU. She said the social injustice project is meant to start conversations about difficult topics like race.
“For me it’s about uncovering the issues and uncovering the stories because sometimes we don’t talk about things because they’re uncomfortable. So this allows us to look at something that may be hard to have a conversation about unless you’re responding to something that you just saw,” Thornton said.
Shelly Hinck, a Mount Pleasant resident and instructor at CMU, was in attendance at the reading. She said that Thornton has brought uncomfortable topics to the Mount Pleasant and CMU communities that need to be discussed.
“She is involved in some really interesting projects that address difficult types of topics, and I think those are the kinds of topics, that are related to social justice, that audiences need to hear,” Hinck said.
Stricker said she wants to bring the project to communities where social injustice issues might not be as visible by performing annual staged readings across Michigan.
She has made conscious decisions while picking performances and cast members. In recent years, Thunder Bay Theatre has added diversity and inclusivity into their values as a company.
Actors and organizers of the reading encouraged audience members to continue to talk about difficult topics after experiencing the play.