 Good evening. Good evening. Welcome. Happy World Theater Day. My name is Derek. Yes, those are four powerful words. It feels good to say them in this room. My name is Derek Goldman. And with my colleague, Ambassador Cynthia Schneider, I'm co-founding director of the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics founded in 2012 and now housed in the Georgetown School of Foreign Service with the mission to harness the power of performance to humanize global politics. When people ask us what we mean by that mission, I think it looks an awful lot like tonight and this room and this event. It's an extraordinary gathering. The energy in this room, the energy around the artists you're going to meet tonight who've been in a short residency here, feels like a living, pulsating testimony to the power of theater and more broadly, the power of stories to connect us across cultures and experiences, across time and place, to wrestle with the most complex and pressing issues in our world and to create empathy and understanding. At a time when swirling around us is so much polarization and distrust, so many old wounds reopened, so many familiar ones that have never been dressed or redressed, so much uncertainty, pain, rage, longing. This gathering feels truly like a momentous and even miraculous occasion of profound convergence. As amazing shapeshifters from around the world come together here in Washington to share different perspectives, to discover all we have in common. So thank you very much for being part of it. The dream that led to tonight's gathering was sparked last summer when with our colleagues from the Global Theater Initiative, we hosted a convening here at Georgetown with just over 200 people from more than 20 countries on the theme of finding home, migration, exile and belonging as part of theater communications groups, national conference. And among many memorable highlights of the day, one of the most moving was Josette Bachelmingo's vivid and inspiring account of her production of A Raisin in the Sun, the first major production of the classic play in Sweden. Some months before, both Cynthia and I on separate visits had been to Johannesburg to the legendary Market Theater and spent time with artistic director James Nkobo and learned, among other things, about the historic production of Hansberry's classic play, He Was Staging There. And then, as it happens, our close collaborators and longtime partners here at Arena Stage in Washington were planning to produce the play in a major revival which begins performances later this week. So this event stemmed from our collective wondering with the amazing Linda Zacherson, the cultural counselor from the Swedish Embassy, what it might mean to bring artists from the three productions together as a catalyst for deeper exploration. And over these past couple of days and just watching the artists interact a little bit, I can say that reality has far exceeded our expectations. Our Global Theater Initiative with TCG also serves as the US Center for the International Theater Institute which under the umbrella of UNESCO is the world's largest performing arts organization advancing UNESCO's goals of mutual understanding and peace and advocating for the protection and promotion of cultural expression through centers in 90 countries spread over every continent in the world. 90 centers all over the world devoted to theater. Since 1962, three years after the premiere of Raisin, ITI has commemorated World Theater Day every March 27th. A celebration of the value and importance of the art form and in ITI's words, quote, a wake up call for governments, politicians, and institutions around the world which have not yet recognized its value to the people, the value of theater that is. So it's meaningful that as we gather in force here in Washington DC, at a time when our new administration is working to eliminate government support for the humanities and the arts. And as steep and dire as many of the challenges are right now, it has been inspiring in these last few months to be on campus here at Georgetown where the values that animate us, our colleagues and our students feel like they are burning brighter and more urgently than ever. The pursuit of social justice, inquiry, imagination, freedom of expression, concern for the greater good. And we're seeing I think resistance and impact through the formation of new alignments and collaborations from people from different disciplines and sectors. I have a fair number of people to thank which I'm gonna try to do quickly, but fervently. And I think that the number there are to thank, this is not a laundry list. It's really meaningful and indicative of exactly the power of what's here in this room, the range of partners and incredible convergence here. And there are many who I could thank, but I'm not going to, who are kind of part of that ripple effect I feel. But a huge thank you to Linda Zackersen, Stefan Hansen, as well as the ambassador and all of our colleagues at the Swedish Embassy who've been our close collaborators in bringing this event to life. To our partners in the Global Theater Initiative with TCG in particular, Amelia Pachapero, Kevin Bitterman and Teresa Eyring with whom we've partnered to form GTI strengthens, nurtures and promotes global citizenship and international collaboration in the U.S. professional and educational theater field, trying to make the U.S. theater less isolationist and more inclusive. To the extraordinarily brilliant and generous Joy Gresham, director of the Lorraine-Hartans Reliterate Trust and her team here from Joy shortly. To our partners at Arena Stage with gratitude as ever for the generosity of Andrew Ammerman who's made so many events possible through the Georgetown Arena Partnership. To Joel Hellman, dean of Georgetown School of Foreign Service for having the vision to see that storytelling, the arts, narrative and empathy are essential pillars for one of the world's leading schools of international relations, especially in these times. It's rare that this kind of work is prioritized in that context and we at the lab feel truly honored to be part of SFS and also a huge thank you to the whole staff and team and support for helping make this our first major event as part of SFS possible. To our colleagues in the Department of Performing Arts here at Georgetown, which is my home, especially our amazingly generous and brilliant chair, Selica Colbert, a leading expert on Hansbury and dramaturg of Arena Stage's current production will moderate tonight's discussion. I also want to thank Dean Chet Gillis from the college. His leadership and care for the performing arts has been so vital to my time here over the last decade. To the brilliant Kwame Kwe Armah, a giant of the global theater based right here in our region as artistic director of Baltimore Center Stage, where in 2013 he produced the celebrated raisin cycle with plays in rep inspired by Raisin in the Sun, including his own play Beneath This Place. Kwame will give the world theater day address. Our friends from Mosaic Theater of DC, led by Ari Roth, who as convergence would have it, have their own rep opening later this week of two plays from South Africa, South Africa Then and Now, and perhaps especially to each and every one of the extraordinary artists from South Africa and Sweden for making this journey, for sharing themselves with us so generously and with each other, as well as the artists from the arena stage production and a special nod to the other DC artists, Erica Rose and Kenyatta Rogers, too, if you care about theater and DC at all, you know that these are two of the leading lights of our DC theater community. To Jamie Galoon, Vijay Matthew and our partners at HowlRound, who are the reason why we are live streaming this event globally to the world, hello world. To Shivanya Corbin Johnson for all her help, and lastly, I would be remiss not to acknowledge that this event and everything the lab does and undertakes would be entirely impossible without the superhuman efforts of our managing director and our only full-time staff member Jojo Rood. In a particularly moving interview between Lorraine Hansberry and the legendary journalist and oral historian, Studs Turkel from 1959, just after the premiere of Raisin, Hansberry said, quote, I sense at this particular time a new mood in the country. We've gone through 10 years of misery under McCarthy and all that nonsense. To the great credit of the American people, they got rid of it and they're making new sounds. I'm glad I was here to make one. At the time she was 29 years old and she would live only five more years. But nearly six decades later, here we are. And that sound she made hasn't in fact dried up but reverberates with immediacy in South Africa, Sweden, Washington DC, and sites around the globe. That sound conjures us to listen deeply to one another to reflect on the past, to notice and bear witness to the present, to imagine the future and to forge new relationships that will strengthen that future. This way of coming together is a powerful antidote to the polarization, repression, xenophobia and distrust around us. Theater can be spectacularly good at countering polarization through the empathy it enables in a live communal setting like this one. And I'm really so thrilled that we're gonna be able to share this evening with you. I would ask you to turn your cell phones off so that we're not interrupted by anything unwelcoming. And among the many distinguished guests I've mentioned we're particularly honored tonight to be joined by the current ambassador of the Republic of South Africa to the United States of America who will share a few words of welcome and some insight into the history and impact of Johannesburg's legendary market theater. Please join me in welcoming Ambassador Mininwa Malangu. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. We are very much honored at South African Embassy today to be part of this year's celebration of World Theater in partnership with our friends from Sweden and the United States. I say friends because my country could never have achieved its freedom without the support of these two nations. And I'm sure you all well read about the history and you understand well what I mean about that. Those who have not yet had a chance to do so, many books and many plays do demonstrate that you will understand as time goes on what am I referring to? South Africa can never forget the political and financial support that was extended by Sweden to the anti-apartheid movement as one of the first countries in the West to support our struggle. Neither can we forget the support we received from American people that led to the adoption of the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act in 1986, which provided a deadly blow to the apartheid system. You would remember that amendment was called the Rangel Amendment and that amendment has meant a lot to us and has made us what we are today. We are a free country. We are a democratic state today in South Africa and we belong to the globe, like all of you today sitting in here. And that's a reason and that's one of the reasons that why we collaborate, why we work with you, why we partner with you, because to us it's very important. Friends and brothers are there in need and indeed, when we really and seriously need them. Neither can we forget the support also that we got from many of you sitting in this house in different forms. Many people around the world were not aware of what is happening in South Africa during those dark days of apartheid era. It took people like O.R. Tambo who we are commemorating his centenary this year and many others to be deployed around the world to communicate what was happening in South Africa. When many of us were oppressed in our own country and, lastly, when we're silenced in our own country, it was the arts that played a major role in telling because when we're silenced you couldn't tell the story. When you were threatened and you were under fear, you couldn't tell the story. But the art was able to perform that duty very expressly and clearly. To the world, not just to a few. Places such as market theater played an important role in ensuring that the voices of silence were heard through performance. Most of the people around the world got to learn about what was happening in South Africa through commissioning work by the theater ending in the name of theater of the struggle. Close code. Ladies and gentlemen, this goes to show what a critical role theater plays in our society. And I believe the same to be true around the world. We face different challenges today around the world and has been the case in the past. We will continue to look at the theater as one of the mediums to help us understand and unpack what is happening in our different societies. Many parts of the countries are still even silenced today, one way or other, but the theater has been unpacked there and demonstrated on the stage or platform as you would be doing tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, internationally or international solidarity became one of the anchor pillars in our struggle to end apartheid because we were able to draw inspiration from others in the civil rights movement and many other formations fighting for justice and equality around the world. As you know, all of you, that the political landscape and economic landscape changes from time to time. The theater will continue to play and raise those issues on the stage. I was therefore encouraged to learn about the collaboration effort to have to pioneer work of Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun, interpreted in three continental cross-cultural contexts. And that's how you speak to us and that's how you speak to the world and that's how you speak to all of us. It speaks to our need to come together as the people of the world to face our current challenges through collaboration effort. Simply because we're not islands, we cannot live alone. We are people of the world. For us to succeed and prosper, it is necessary to do what we are doing tonight. Cross-cultural speaking can make us a wonderful world to live in and can bring that unity that we need and make a wonderful living for all of us and create peace in the world. I therefore want to take this opportunity to thank all those involved in bringing us together here on this important occasion. Thank you, Mr. Ngovo, you are here with some of the South Africans. The Swedish people are here, the United States is here, many others. I have no words to say thank you tonight, but thank you very much. Let the evening go well. Thank you, bye-bye. Good evening, everyone. I'm Linda Sackresen, I'm the cultural counsellor of the Embassy of Sweden and I must say I'm very, very touched. I was saying to Joy that I will cry a lot tonight, hopefully not while I'm speaking. So please beware with me, but I think you might need some handkerchiefs later tonight. Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for your kind words. As the cultural counsellor for the Embassy of Sweden, we're based close by here in something called the House of Sweden by the waterfront of Georgetown. And I would like to invite all of you to come and see us there. We're open every weekend to the public and we have events going on all the time and me and my colleagues, we work all over the US, but we constantly try to work through the arts and in collaborations with the arts. This year we are focusing on migration and Sweden, in fact, welcomed more refugees than any other European country in relation to its population. We took in more than 200,000 refugees the last two years. The equivalent figure in the US would be 6 million people. This has created quite a debate also here in the US that we want to address in different ways from the Embassy's side. And my background is with the arts. Before coming here almost two years ago, I have 20 years of experience from mostly with theater but also dance, circus and film and cultural policies. And through our work, we are trying to find ways of nuancing the debates. And right now we have two exhibitions on display, on migration. One of them is called Sweden Beyond the Headlines and the other one is a photo exhibition by a photographer called Magnus Vennmann who followed children, refugee children and asked them of where they are sleeping. He has taken very, very strong photos. It's called Where the Children Sleeps. It's on display until June and I think you should all see it. We all need to see it. Also on the relationship between Sweden and South Africa, I have to mention that the institution in Sweden where I spent most of my years, the city theater in Stockholm, Stadsteaten and since 1991, that theater had a great relation and exchange going on with the market theater in Johannesburg that has contributed so much to the development and learning and understanding in Swedish theater and in Swedish society too. So thank you for that. I believe in the power of performance and I believe in the power of conversation and I really think that we can through the arts create nuances, plurality and go beyond black and white and beyond polarization. And this experience just as Derek explained has been a very organic one in an amazing way. It feels like in these troubling times we are all eager in an almost electric way of taking a stand from the first crazy idea that came up when I approached the TCG in the New York offices one and a half year ago suggesting that we should invite Yuset Bushelmingo, this magnificent director and actress from Sweden to come to the national conference here in DC. They were like, yes! And all the way through this process until today and I think also for the future everyone has jumped on board without knowing really how to make this happen. But just said, we have to do it, we have to do it. And when Yuset came here, as Derek described she came speaking at the pre-conference here for 200 people and she was fearless. She was fearless in the exact way that the debate needs. She addressed all the hardest issues with such an emotional maturity and competence and it started a spark and it kicked off new ideas and a thirst to move on, to think bigger, to dig deeper and to investigate further. So thank you to all wonderful partners here in the US for believing in the idea of bringing the first Afro-Swedish ensemble ever to meet here with theater colleagues from the African diaspora from around the world to share experiences. And thank you also to the Swedish Arts Council and the Swedish Arts Grants Committee for your support in making this happen. I think that nowhere else in the world is the importance of this event and this conversation larger than right here and right now. Thank you. Now it's time to start celebrating the world theater day. And I'd like you all to welcome the amazing Kwame Kweyama on stage, please. Thank you so much. Good evening everybody. That sounds like about five people out there. I'm gonna do it again. Good evening everybody. Yes, we're here to celebrate world theater day. What beautiful words they are. I first of all have to thank any and everyone who is responsible for asking me here today. What a beautiful honor. What we do is a beautiful thing. At least it is to me. And to be able to speak to it for about a few minutes is really touching and humbling. The iconic American theater practitioner, Zelda Fitch Handler, once said, the gift of the artist is the gift of sight. For those of us whose primary area of expression is the theater, I might augment that by adding the gift or even the basic requirement of a theater artist is to think, no, to dream forward. Dream is a curious word, isn't it? It can carry the connotation of an unrealistic aspiration, of an intangible thing yet to be made manifest of a beautiful desire experienced with eyes closed and bodies in liminal space. But to me, as a theater artist, dreaming is what we do all day, every day, with our eyes wide open and our feet firmly placed on the ground. But we're not the only people who dream. The world is, well, is currently unsettling. But what's abundantly clear to me is that this is someone's dream. This is someone's desire made most manifest. The rise of populist nationalism across the West and some parts of Asia should not have been a surprise to those, as Fitch Handler says, who have the gift of sight. But it should, however, have been a huge wake-up call to those that dream forward. It prompted many questions in me. Somewhere along the line, did I, did we, dilute our dreams of a collective, inclusive world? Did we subconsciously think that our values were unrealistic aspirations to be experienced momentarily only with our eyes closed? Did we simply not believe enough? I began to get a little depressed. And then I remember that I am a theater artist. And here's the beautiful thing about theater. It is best experienced with our eyes fully open, best made with our fears and our questions and our wounds on full display. And it can only be constructed with the mutuality of absolute interdependence. Yes, individuality has no place here and there are no alternative facts to that. Theater is a palace dedicated to and sanctified for the pursuit of truth using the spirit and the mind and sight as its tools. At best, it pushes the soul into permanent action. We all know that because we all fight for that opening night, don't we? Now, do I sound a tad evangelical? Yes, I do. And why should I not be? I want everyone on this planet to partake in this art form in whatever way they can because ultimately when I dream forward, I see a world that fully utilizes the power of communal narrative creation to help rehumanize our families, our cities, our countries and our world. Theater ultimately rehumanizes the most powerful tool on the planet. No, that is not the internet. It is the human heart. And ultimately we as theater artists are here to do just that, make the human heart stronger, beat faster, see further and dream bigger. Happy World Theatre Day. Good evening. My name is Joy Gresham and I am the literary executor to the estate of Lorraine Hansberry. I'm the daughter of Jewel Handy Gresham and Robert Nimeroff. Robert Nimeroff was Lorraine's creative collaborator and the person who she trusted most with her words and her thoughts. And Robert Nimeroff was named by Lorraine as her literary executor upon her death. In 1967, Robert Nimeroff married my mother, Jewel Handy Gresham, and I was her 10-year-old only child. At that time, we moved to the Croton on Hudson Home, which was Lorraine and Bob's. I lost my father in 1991 to cancer and in 2005, my mother followed him, also dying of cancer. It was at that time that I took the helm as literary trustee and so my work began. Now the work that I do as literary trustee is that I manage all the rights, I license all the print, audio, photographic, film, stage and intellectual properties of this artist. Nothing can go to print, to stage, to recording without coming through me. And I take this awesome responsibility very seriously and with tremendous humility. Lorraine is not often recognized for the breadth of her brilliance and her voice. She was a prolific essayist, speaker and cultural critic. Now let me say a few words about A Raisin in the Sun. I was asked to speak to give you a broad context for understanding not only this work, but all the work of Lorraine Hansberry. A Raisin in the Sun had its Broadway premiere in 1959. The artist was 29 years old. A Raisin in the Sun is still in constant production. In fact, every day it's in production somewhere in the world. We've come to understand that A Raisin in the Sun is not just an American play, it's a play of the world. It's been translated into over 30 languages. It's been performed on six of the seven continents, the exception being Antarctica. As you may know, A Raisin in the Sun is part of the core curriculum in the United States and in Europe. 2009 marked the 50th anniversary of the Broadway premiere. And in 2004 and 2014, A Raisin in the Sun returned to Broadway. 2009 also marks the resurgence of interest in not only A Raisin in the Sun, but all of the Hansberry works. At the same time, in 2014, Lorraine's second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustine's Window, was revived at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. And then again in 2016 at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. It's now headed for Broadway. 2016, Lorraine's third play, Le Blanc, was revived at the Royal National Theater in London to critical acclaim. 2016 also marks the Swedish touring production of A Raisin in the Sun and the South African production at Market Theater in Johannesburg. Today, World Theater Day marks the historic gathering of three companies from South Africa, Sweden, and the United States arena stage. Let me repeat, never before has this happened. All around the world, people are dreaming of home, better life, and migration. In closing, let me just place emphasis on a few statements. A Raisin in the Sun, in particular, of all Hansberry's work, has never gathered dust. Lorraine's work is more alive now than ever. We honor her legacy as artist, public, intellectual, writer, and activist. Lorraine is of the future. Our job is to try and catch up with her. To learn more about her life and work, I invite you to check out our website, L-H-L-T, which stands for Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust. It's L-H-L-T dot org. Thank you. It's such an honor to be here, to celebrate World Theater Day with you, and specifically to do so in honoring Lorraine Hansberry. So I'm just gonna take a moment to introduce Hansberry's beautiful play, and then I'm going to invite the three theater companies, the three parts of our production, to join me on the stage. Lorraine Hansberry's classic American drama is set on the south side of Chicago in 1959, and it depicts the dreaming of the younger family. The play begins with telling its audience that Big Walter has left an insurance check, he's just died and left an insurance check for the matriarch of the family, his wife, Lena Younger, and mama, who she's referred to in the play, has to decide what she's going to do with this insurance money, and how she's going to fulfill the competing and equally robust dreams of her children. Will she invest in the entrepreneurial desires of her son Walter Lee? Will she help to support her daughter Beneatha's dream of going to medical school? Or will she use the money to purchase a home for her grandson and her daughter-in-law, which is part of their shared dream? And so the play really takes us on a journey into how the younger family is able to use this money, but also how their dreams might be fulfilled working together and working in tension with one another. And so tonight, we are going to have the awesome experience of seeing how Handsbury's beautiful work translates across three continents and how the dreaming that Handsbury invited us to participate in in 1959 continues to resonate with our current moment. So at this time, I invite Josette and the rest of our actors to join me on stage. What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up? Like a dragon in the sun? You piss, you must chag all. Or would it make a caramel, a scorpion of something sweet? Maybe it's just a thin oak that weighs down everything more. What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun or faster like a saw and then run? Does it make a caramel, a scorpion of something sweet? Or does it blow up? Or does it explode? The first scene we are going to present today is from Act One, and it is when Mama and Ruth are sitting in the kitchen discussing what they could possibly do with the money. And it is in Swedish. $10,000. It's really wonderful. $10,000. Do you know what you should do, Miss Lina? You should go on a trip somewhere. To Europe or South America, or whatever. Beware of me, well. I mean, never. Just pack your bag and go. Forget the family and have fun for once in your life. We're talking like we're about to die. Who would follow me? How would it look if I was walking around to Europe on my own? Those rich white women, they do it for the women. They don't think it's funny to just pack their bags and climb on board one of those big ocean waves and rush away. Something tells me that I'm not a rich white woman. But what are you going to do? I haven't really decided. But some of us should go to Beneath's doctorate and that part of it won't be affected. Absolutely not. But then I thought we might be able to get rid of the costs when we get a little two-bedroom house somewhere with a trailer. If we use a part of the insurance money to pay for it, and everyone helps out, I would be able to take some extra work again. Yes, God knows that we've paid enough for this mess that it's called four houses in this team. Rottfella? Yes, that's what it is. But I remember that yesterday, when I moved in here, we hadn't been married for more than 14 days and we wouldn't live here for more than a year. We would lay down a little bit after hand, a little bit later, you know, and buy a house out there in Morgan Park. Yes, it's even more looked like. Oh, God, I dreamed of buying that house and making it nice and the trees on the back side. Then there was never anything of that. Life can be full of obstacles sometimes. You know, sometimes Big Walter used to come in and throw himself in that sofa and just look at Matt and then look at me and look at Matt and then look at me and then I knew that he was down, really down. And then, God, when I lost my little child, Little Claude, I thought I was going to lose Big Walter too. And then that man threw his children away. There's nothing that can tear you down so much as to lose a child. I assume that's why he ended up working as hard as he did, as if he had a private war against this world that took his children away from him. He had a nice man, Mr. Younger. Took him in his children. But God knows how much it was wrong with Walter Younger. He could have been both a coward and a coward and had the right will with the women. But he really loved his children. He always wanted them to have something and become something. That's where Walter Lee gets all his ideas from, I assume. You know? Sometimes Walter would say that he could be quite blind in his eyes and he could turn his head back with eyes full of tears and say, it seems as if God didn't know what to do with him. But he gave us our children so that there would be some meaning with those dreams. He could talk about it that way. We knew he was that. He was a good man, Mr. Younger. Yes, a nice man. He could never have had his dreams and that's how it was. In the next scene, uh, oh, I don't know what to do with him. I don't know what to do with him. In this next scene, uh, oh, uh, yes, thank you. I thought it was a different scene first. I'm going to sit back down again and let this happen. This next moment is now. The money and the check, of course, have arrived and there has been debate. The scene that we are going to see now is when, uh, the money is lost and we see beneath her meeting Asagai to discuss. Walter has lost part of his money and the life of the family is changed. Aliyah, what kind of mood is this? Have I told you how deeply you moved me? He gave away the money, Asagai. Who gave away what money? Insurance money. My brother gave it away. He gave it away? He made an investment where the man even Travis wouldn't have trusted with his most worn-out marbles. And it's gone? Gone. Oh. I'm very sorry. And, and you now? Me. Me am nothing. Me. We used to take our sleds out in the wintertime and the only, uh, the hills we had with our eyes covered snow steps of some houses down the street. We used to fill them in with snow and make them smooth and slide down them all day. It was dangerous, you know. Far too steep. Sure enough, a kid named Rufus, he came down too fast, hit the sidewalk and we saw his face split open right there in front of us. I remember looking at his bloody open face thinking that was the end of Rufus. But they, but the ambulance came and they took him to the hospital and fixed his broken bones and sewed him all up. And the next time I saw Rufus, he just had one line down the middle of his face. I never got over that. What? That. That that was what one person could do. Fix him up, sew up the problem, make him all right again. That was the most marvelous thing in the world. I wanted to do that. I always thought that was the one concrete thing that a human being could do. Fix up the sick, make him whole again. This was truly being God. You wanted to be God? No. No. I wanted to cure. It used to be important. I wanted to cure. It used to matter. I used to care. I mean about people and how their whole bodies hurt. And you have stopped caring? Yes, I think so. Why? Because it doesn't seem deep enough, close enough to what ails mankind. It was a child's way of seeing the world and idealists. Children see all things very clearly sometimes and idealists even better. I knew that's what you'd think. Because you're where I left off. You, with all your talk and dreams of Africa, you still think you can patch up the world. You're the great sore colonialism with your pencil and of independence. Independence and then what? What about the crooks and thieves and plain idiots who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as before? Only this time there'll be black and do it in the name of new independence. What about them? That will be a problem for another time but first we must get there. And where, where does it end? End? Who spoke of an end? To life, to living? An end to misery, to stupidity. Sleeping in my bed. There were things happening in the world that directly concerned me. People went out and did things and changed my life. Don't you get it, assa guy? There is no real progress. There's just one large circle we marching around and around. Each of us with our own little picture in front of us. Each of us with our own little mirage of what we think is the future. That is a mistake. What you just said about the circle. You see, it isn't just a circle. It is simply a law as in geometry. You know, the one that reaches into infinity. And because we cannot see the end, we also cannot see how it changes. It is very odd, but those who see changes, those who dream, we call them idealists and those who only see the circle, we call them realists. It is very strange and amusing too, I think. You're almost religious. Yes. You see, I have the religion of doing what it is necessary in the web of worshipping man because he is so marvelous, you see. Man is foul and the human race deserves misery. You have become the religious one in the old sense. Already after such a small defeat, you are worshipping defeat. I worship the truth. And the truth is people are small, puny and selfish. Truth? Why is it that you despairing ones always think that only you have the truth? I never thought to see you like that. You. Your brother has made a small stupid childish mistake and you are being grateful to him. You've already given up on the ailing human race on account of it. You talk about what good is struggle. What good is anything? Where are we all going and why are we even bothering? And you cannot answer that. I leave the answer. In my village, back at home, it takes an exceptional man to read a newspaper. Or whoever sees a book at all. I will go back to my village and much of what I'll have to say will seem strange to the people of my village. But I will teach and work and things will happen softly slowly and quickly. And then at times it will seem as nothing ever changes at all, but then again the sudden dramatic events of history will leap into the future and then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I at times even wonder if the quiet wasn't at all better than the hatred and death. But I I will look about my village at the illiteracy, disease, ignorance and I will not wonder long. Perhaps I will be a great man. Perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way on the right course. And perhaps I will be butchered some night in my bed by the servants of empire. The mother. And perhaps I will live long to be old respected and distinct in my nation. And perhaps I will hold office. And this is what I'm trying to say to you. Alio. Perhaps the things I now believe for my country will be wrong and outmort it. And I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way and keep power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women, not soldiers then, but my own countrymen to then step out of the evening shadows and slit my then useless throat. That they have always been there and always will be. And to even have such a thing as my own death be in advance. They who might kill me even replenish me. Oh, as a guy I know all that. Good. Then stop moaning and groaning and tell me what it is you plan to do. Do. I have a bit of a suggestion. What? That when it is all over you come back home with me. Oh, as a guy at this moment you decide to be romantic. Oh, my dear young beautiful creature of the new world I did not talk about across the city. I am talking about the ocean. Home to Africa. No corona or love me. In the next scene we'll find Walter Lee and Travis in their living room. They are waiting for the insurance check to come and Walter Lee is talking about his dreams about the money. What am I a papa? Are you full? No, daddy ain't drunk. Daddy ain't never gonna be drunk again. Okay. Good night, papa. Son, son. I feel like talking to you tonight. About what? About a lot of things. About you and what kind of man you're gonna be when you grow up. Son. Son. What do you want to be when you grow up? What? I ain't nothing I want to be. Why not? Because, man, it ain't big enough. You know what I mean. Yeah. But I don't know. Sometimes my mom asks me the same thing. When I tell her that I just want to be like you she says she doesn't want me to be like you. You know what, Travis? In seven years you're gonna be 17 years old. And things are gonna be very difficult with us. And one day when you are 17 I will come home from the office. No. But after tonight your daddy's gonna there's gonna be lots of offices. What do you think you're gonna do tonight? You wouldn't understand yet, son. But your daddy's gonna make a transaction. A business transaction. A business transaction that's gonna change our lives. That's how I come one day when you're about 17 I'll come home and I'll be pretty tired. You know what I mean. From a long day of conferences and secretaries getting things wrong as they always do. Because an executive's life is hell, man. And I'll pull up a car in the driveway just to plain black Chrysler with white walls. No, no, no. Plain black tires are elegant. Rich people don't have to be flashy. Though I have to get something a little sportier for Ruth. Maybe a Cadillac convertible do a shopping in. And I'll come up the stairs to the house and the garden will be clipping away at the hedges and you'll say, good evening, Mr. Younger. And I'll say, hello, Jefferson. How you doing this evening? And I'll go inside and Ruth will meet me at the store and we'll kiss and go upstairs to your room. To your room to see you sitting on the floor with the catalogs of all the great schools of America all around you. All the great schools of the world. And I'll say, all right, son. It's your 17th birthday. What is it you decided? Just tell me where you want to go to school and you'll go. Just tell me what it is you want to be and you'll be at whatever you want to be. Yes, sir. You just name it, son. And I'll give you the world. In the next scene we have Mr. Lidner coming through to the Youngers to try to convince them not to move into the White neighborhood Clyburn Park. This is the very same neighborhood where mama bought a house with some of the money she received. Good on you, Mr. Selena Younger. Yes, that's my mother. Excuse me. Brother Ruth, there's a white man at the door. Oh, hey, come in, please. Thanks for your care. My mother isn't here just now. Is it business? What's that of ease? I'm Mrs. Younger's son. I look after most of her business matters. I had to call Lidner. Well, it's a Younger. This is my wife and my sister. Good on you. What can we do for you, Mr. Lidner? Yes, that's right. I'm coming from Clyburn Park's Forbidding Association. I want you to put your things on the couch. Oh, yes. Thank you so much. So, as I said, I'm coming from Clyburn Park's Forbidding Association. I've come to know that you, or at least your mother, bought a house on 406 Clyburn Street. That's right. Care for something to drink, Ruth? Get Mr. Lidner a beer. Oh, no, that's not what I meant. Thank you so much. A little coffee, perhaps? Thank you very much. I don't know how much you know about our organization. It's the organization of the area that we're talking about. I don't know. A kind of shelter of the area and a special project. We also have something that we call the introduction of new neighbors. Yes. And what do they do? They're a little mental. I was going to call it a kind of welcome committee. I mean, we, me and the director, go around and meet the new people who are going to move into the neighborhood and talk about how it goes in Clyburn Park. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes, and what are some of those? Uh-huh. Yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yes. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. or just so that people don't sit down and talk to each other. There you said, the word of truth, master. Yes, yes, exactly. Yes, that we do not force ourselves enough to try to understand the other man's problem, the other's perspective. Yes, but that's how it is. Yes, and that's why I decided to come here today, talk to you and see if we can't find a way to get to a solution. I mean, anyone can see that in a shooting family, a hard-working, loyal people, I'm sure of that. And of course there is always someone who is out there after using the one who doesn't understand. What do you mean? Yes, you understand. Our area. There are people who have worked and worked in the 17th century in many of these years to build up this little area. I mean, we are not rich or well-known people. Only hard-working, loyal people who don't have so much more than those small homes and a dream. They have a kind of society that we want our children to grow up in. Well, I absolutely don't want us to be perfect. No, there are a lot of things that are wrong with some things that we want to have in our way, but... We still have to contribute that a man, whatever he has in mind, has the right to have the area he lives in in a certain way. And as it is now, it feels like an overwhelming majority of us out there, that you get much better overall, that you have a rather large interest in life in terms of... When you share the same background. I mean, and now I want you to believe me, when I'm sure that you're stupid simply don't have to do this. What am I trying to say here? I think it's... I believe that the Black families will be much more happier if they live in their own communities. This, friends, is the welcoming committee. Okay, if we grab some chairs. There's a circle here. I need five chairs here. One, two. Thank you. Thank you, that was beautiful. So I just have a few questions of our directors about their respective productions, and then hopefully we'll loop into the conversation about what we just saw. So James, could you tell us a little bit about how the play, and specifically we could think something about this scene with Asagai and Benita, how the politics and political possibility that the play Dreams continues to resonate, and how that manifests itself particularly in South Africa when the play was performed on the 40th anniversary of Sawayta Day? Is Sawayta uprising? Well, first of all, Erika was right, the scenes were the other way around. So... We looked at the production of A Raising in the Sun for the Market Theatre celebrating its 40 years, and it was our seminal work for 2016. And this scene, why we chose this scene to bring it here, it's because it was just a scene that is dealing with two young people dissecting their dreams, dissecting their path, going forward. And for me, what was quite exciting, I spoke about it last night, just saying to see a character like Asagai in South Africa where since 1994 and our country went through a complete metamorphosis, we started seeing an influx of a whole lot of people coming to South Africa. It was very important that we looked at Asagai and in the play he speaks a lot of Yoruba because I wanted to make sure that in the scene the language Yoruba is heard by South Africans. Because if you remember for a long time, we lived on our own during the past three years. And there was a time in South Africa where there was sort of xenophobic kind of episodes that were happening. And it was very important to make sure that our audiences are able to see a character of a Nigerian that is not a stereotype of a person involved in drugs. And which is what was one of the genesis that started this animosity that's been happening in South Africa between some South Africans and Nigerians. And so we spent a lot of time really wanting to bring out this man, to bring out a young dreamer. And I love the fact that at that time Lorraine Hensprey brings out a character like Asagai in this play when countries like Ghana were getting their freedom and Algeria. And it speaks so much about how well read she was about the continent of Africa. And I didn't want to go through what we've seen a lot where Nigerian characters are very exotic. I mean, I even said yesterday in the play he is, we didn't even put him on Nigerian garb. He just arrived as a young man who's in Chicago studying and there's this beautiful boy-mid girl story that is happening between him and Benita. And so I wanted to texture that in a way that speaks to what is happening in South Africa in contemporary times where we are seeing the continent and it's a joyful time in South Africa. So the relationship between Asagai and Benita we really spent a lot of time to just blow it up and make sure that it is a joyful presentation for an audience. Thank you, thank you. So Josette, could you talk some about what specifically resonated most with Swedish audiences from your production? We talked some about Hansberry's play opening up for us ways of dreaming new worlds. This is a theme of our theater here at Georgetown last year but also something that came up in the conversation just now was about how Hansberry's really responding to what she saw as the politics of despair in mid-century and one might argue that we are in a similar moment or a similar moment of peril internationally specifically in the US and so I'm just curious if there is a way that you saw the play responding in this moment to some of those national feelings that seem to be reemerging and might feel similar to what we were experiencing mid-century both nationally and internationally. Okay, what's rather ironic is that I am British born and I live in Sweden working at Riksdjorten so I have multi-languages so don't get confused. I think one of the things that's very important is to understand the conditions under which Afro-Swedish actors are living and working. What's very important is that I detect for the first time over half of the audience saw a raise in the sun performed by Afro-Swedish actors part of our diaspora family in Swedish. This is not a language adopted that you are Afro-Swedes. Tala dusvenska, right? It's not a joke, it's true, it's real and I think the play resonated through Lorraine because here where there was a great identification with family, there was a great identification with the female roles, we saw that both with our colleagues from South Africa in the performances that we saw at the wonderful arena theater, the mother figure, that role coming through. I think also as well in Sweden we're in a position where we as yet have no black theater company. We as yet have not a strong enough existing at all books from the African diaspora. When we started the rehearsals, there were actors within it that didn't know or hadn't heard of Lorraine Hansberry. We did the play for the first time in 2016. In terms of the international resonance, it landed for us also at the backdrop when we had some of the most complicated political situations, almost a renaissance for Afro-Swedes, which was everything from the growth of the right wing within Europe and beyond, the reawakening of Afro-Swedes to the community of Sámi, which are of course Sweden's first indigenous population, and Sweden understanding its role within the slave trade, understanding that it also owns slave castles. A huge complication and awakening, awakening is maybe the wrong word, but a reemergence of thought. So a raisin in the sun was working on multi-levels. I used an image today. You know when you're choosing paint and you have this kind of fan of colors? You know what I mean? It was a similar thing happening for us in Sweden. This just wasn't about the power of Lorraine Hansberry, which is what all this work was about. It was actually the fact that Sweden, had never seen her work before. It had never been translated before. Her brothers and sisters, James Baldwin, Marcus Gardley, and all the great writers that exist in her house had never been heard of. It was the establishment of three-dimensional, complex characters living an everyday life in front of audiences. It was lifting her work up with some of the male patriarchal systems that were already in existence in Sweden, Ibsen, Chekhov, Strinberg, and there was Lorraine. Coming forth and going, catch up with me, gentlemen. Catch up with me. In terms of the international perspective, it was then happening on a multi-layered, which only the actors themselves can really explain. And yes, it was about timing. It really was about timing. And of course, the political movement, whether we're looking at what's happening around Brexit, what's happening with the new government here, what's happening with the political growth within Sweden, a raisin in the sun landed right on time, right on time for us in Sweden, on all sorts of levels. And so I'm picking up on the question of temporality and timing and roofing on Joy Gresham's note to us that Lorraine Hansberry is of the future. One of the things that you did in your cycle was imagine a future for Benita and some of the characters in a raisin. And so I'm wondering if you were to think about an addendum to the play that would account for where we are today in our world and our politics. What would that be in thinking about the ongoing impact of raisin in 2017? I think that's quite hard to answer. And the reason I think that's quite hard to answer is because I think my esteemed colleagues have kind of said and have articulated rather beautifully what, how, and enjoy how much of a future seer Lorraine was. I'm fascinated when I was writing Benita's place. I was fascinated how, and again, as my colleague has said, how after Ghana had only been independent for three years, that Lorraine was writing about the horrors that would be beset upon the continent not just from the inside but also from the outside in terms of international pressure to break the dream of a pan-Africa. And let me take this moment to congratulate Josette as well with bringing the diasporic family together so beautifully here this evening. It's beautiful. I think Clyburn Park was an attempt to bring this beautiful narrative and this quintessential American but yet universal story into the future. And so, again, I'm slightly saying I don't know how to answer your question about what it would be. I think art is at its best when it lives in metaphor. So I'm often actually, I think it's, she has done the future-proofing Lorraine in the very texture and theme and construction of the play. Anything else or anybody else is simply piggybacking on, I think, something which is very solid. So I wonder if I could open up a question to anyone on stage who might want to answer, and we can pass the mics around about what the experience was like both in production and in rehearsals for the arena stage folks for the play and then also tonight being in collaboration or conversation via a diasporic audience. What that experience has been like? Hi. I would say that the experience for me as one of the first, I think, Afro-Swedes growing up as one of maybe 20 kids in the 60s in Stockholm, growing up not even knowing about Lorraine Hansberry, this journey has been exceptional because it has also awakened a lot for me as a person, but also as an actor. It has awakened an awareness and nowadays I'd like to call myself an activist. It is more important, my eyes are opened and it's really important to do the work. I didn't know that before this. I really didn't, so I think that a lot of us as Afro-Swedes will be changed forever and watching the Swedish audience crying, laughing, recognizing, even a little bit ashamed of what they didn't do, what they couldn't do and what they did. So for me that was exceptional touring in 48 different cities in Sweden and meeting the audience and every night getting very, very strong reactions. Yes? Can I speak? It was an emotional journey for many of us. For an example, we had to talk about protection, going out on tour, because we don't know what can happen because it has happened before that theater companies have been attacked and things happen on stage and stuff and people got a bit scared and nervous but nothing happened and the tour went, it was a beautiful tour in many ways and for me personally grown up as an Afro-Swed with one parent from Senegal, West Africa and one Swedish parent, it was amazing to, it was not like 10 kids in Stockholm when I grew up but we increased. Yeah? But it was still in the beginning like my father told me to say hello to all the black people you see because we are family. And it's not really like that anymore and I don't say hello to all the black people I see because then I would look strange but I'm so happy to be, of course I've never been in a black cast before because normally you are the cast black person and you, as some of our colleagues said before you don't know why, is it because you're going to put some flavor in it or is it because, yeah, you know what I mean. To play diverse characters and really feel like, wow, I'm an actor and I'm doing this. It was, yeah, I'm very proud to be a part of this. Yeah. Both in terms of being in the production but then also being a part of this. Yeah, okay. Well, I've had such an amazing time. I had no idea what to expect to that stand up. I've had such an amazing time. I'm just so thankful one, it's just been beautiful and I wish we had all day, I wish we had all week and I hope that one day we can continue this work. Anyway, so it was incredible to hear actors from Sweden and South Africa talk about things that are happening here and it was crazy to see that also they were surprised by some things that they thought had changed here but hadn't. I was saying today that in my university experience, we did all the classics, western white European classics, mostly male and I didn't do my first all black cast, you know, African American playwright until I was 26, I was out of school, so I was feeling like you know, can I do this, this language? Does this look like it's me? Is it mine? I didn't work on that in school, I didn't work on just being myself. Right, so it was very, very interesting to hear the idea about not being black enough, one person said that today anyway, but just all those things, all those similarities, it feels so healing to hear and I just wish we could keep talking. I think for me the experience doing A Raisin in the Sun was phenomenal because it was the ability to showcase the talent that we have as black South African performers taking on the American accent and really immersing ourselves into the reality of a narrative that extends itself beyond our continent and giving it a truth. We shared so much today about our experiences and one of the things that I think was I forgot to mention and would love to mention is how in our cast we had younger actors playing the role, so we didn't really go age specific as you know, the script says and what ended up happening was that so many of the black actors completely understood this reality of moving from a black suburb into a suburb that is considered that is white because a lot of us had grown up during just late 80s into the 90s some of us you know late 70s, 80s and so it was through doing this work or doing A Raisin in the Sun in South Africa we found a way to express that experience to get inside it and go we know this so well, it happened it was a thing from the township in South Africa and then go into the white suburb, are you safe are you okay, are you welcome and a lot of the time people weren't welcome and I think today's experience was absolutely phenomenal to know that Afro Swedes, Afro-Americans we all have we all have something that we share with black life, you know so it's been an amazing opportunity and experience I think one of the things that I often wrestle with particularly with Lorraine Hansberry's work is my perception and I don't even perceive it to be right that she understood that black was a political construction and that it really doesn't exist that by being culturally specific that somehow she could tap into the universal that it felt less important to investigate blackness than it was to investigate the structural inequalities of a country and of a system that used race in a political way to suppress and when I listen to the diasporic voice speak about that I understand it particularly when I hear it through a South African context I hear structural inequalities through the construction of white supremacy less about extolling the virtues of blackness so I know we're running short on time and I want to leave time for you to ask questions I just have one more question of our directors and that is about specific choices that you made to emphasize the context in which you were producing the plays and so specifically thinking about casting Travis as an older character or any other decisions that you made in casting or in the production of the play that sought to emphasize the context in which you were producing it Okay, I'll start because it's probably the easiest we came to the production and there were two choices because we work at the Ariksteothen which is the national touring theater and we toured to over how many theaters 48 theaters across the country that also meant and we have Lothar Nilsson if you want to stand up and wave quickly there's Lothar Nilsson from Sweden and Eva Ritzel who dealt with the hair and the makeup you also rise, your highness, thank you there you go, right, because they are the first but one of the things we noticed very quickly was we couldn't tour and we couldn't tour a child both of the productions that we have now saw today were in one place touring all over Sweden was legally not possible because we have to change the child, parent guidance and so on so in discussion with Joy, in discussion with Lisbeth Grönland who's here who also did the first translation Eva for us in Sweden, we were allowed to actually lift your hand then Lisbeth say hi to everybody, there you go we actually then, and we found out of course that our colleagues in the market theater did a similar choice but then Travis became older and that was then played by Adam which of course I won't reveal how old you are but all this needless to say we were then able to tour so that was one choice, one of the other things that came up which I just want to end with was of course I spoke a little bit about the political times and there were many more things in Sweden we're still talking about Tintin i Kongo which is the Tintin books and whether or not they should be in libraries we're still discussing words to be used from the N word and the ownership of that to the Negro, Negres, we're still in that context and by the time we came out with the production the United States had gone through a whole series of brutal, brutal murders I would use that word of African Americans including Michael Brown and so on the list when I call the names if they come into the room so I call them with respect but there was a whole summer of loss for us and in that context when we were doing the last scene of the play enjoy, you must correct me on this of course but Lorraine wrote two versions there was one version which is the one that's most well known which is the family at the end when they actually won the battle to get the house that they want and move to where they want to move to that extraordinary image where the plant is lifted and they leave the house and they're on their way as I understood Lorraine wrote a second ending that through various choices from TV to length of time or sorts of things the second ending was actually one where the family were then once the lights shifted and the family went out of the house the next scene was actually when they arrived in their new house and you saw them sitting under a lamp on the sofa in Sweden we tested that ending the other ending that Lorraine wrote was also an ending that I would like to call defending the dream which is where she allowed the family once they entered into the house they experienced and of course it is in Gleinborn Park which of course is a white area at that time and when we staged it the choice we made was the family arrived and Travis the son comes into the house and already outside there is the sound of rioting because they already knew when Mr. Lidner goes back that there was going to be trouble what was interesting for us was the choice I didn't make the choice to do that scene we actually presented it to our audience in Sweden so we literally tested it in front of them and said which one should we do in the context of Sweden should it be the one and neither is good or bad right or wrong but which one and in the end we did one scene where we set it up we put all the lights sound everything and we explained to the audience they came out they did the scene I mean it's so so powerful and we stopped went back and did the second scene and what was interesting in the second scene the family come in Travis came in and he has a baseball bat in his hand which he has as a play thing but of course with the sound of the riot outside and of course the residents in Gleinborn Park already beginning to attack the family in the house that bat that Walter takes from his son becomes a tool of defense does that make sense that he takes it now what was crucial in Sweden was to ask the audience which one should we do which ending was right for us now and um they chose the baseball bat and they chose that specifically for where we were and still are at that time the difference between what happened when the bat held as a toy of innocence and joy is transformed into a tool of defense because when at blacks we take anything in our hand we are always on the attack somebody has yet to work out that we're actually defending ourselves a lot of the time sorry I have to just slip that mh but the choice we made was to go with the baseball bat and the final scene that we had is of the father taking the bat from his son holding it to say we don't want to do this but if we have to we will and I will do anything to protect my family we then played the voice of Mahalia Jackson as well just to float her in and we had permission to also weave in some of the original voice of Lorraine Hansberry speaking at the end and most importantly in terms of journey we kept the final image moving that meant that the actors were never frozen they kept moving all the time as if it would never end that was a choice and it was made practically in Sweden by the people well we had the same thing because we knew we wanted to to tour the piece we were looking at theaters in Cape Town so we also had an older Travis but one of the things that I wanted to do to the play at the market theater we've got these arches and these alcoves and I had an idea to create neighbors of the younger family that throughout the piece that were completely synchronized into the piece and right at the end our ending was the ending as you know it where she picks up the plant she exits and then the next thing that happens the whole set comes down and you see the people who are sort of left behind you know and the youngest have been able to escape the squalor and the degradation of the area that they live in because for me also it just comes from again I wanted to resonate to what is happening in South Africa that today we still have people who have been just waiting for their dreams to come right and they still waiting and I just thought that kind of symbolism in the piece that we are showing these silhouetted characters to the audience throughout the piece and then right at the end as they exit we then expose all these other people that are left behind I worked with a choreographer so to make sure that these other lives that are in the play did not impact on the piece in any funny way and then looking also going back to Asagai what I love that Lorraine Hensby did in the piece is that 50 years ago the character of Asagai is projecting and there is a scene in that scene he keeps saying perhaps there will be this perhaps there will be that and I started thinking of General Abache, General Babangita the death of Kansara Weewa and in the beginning of this scene as he walks in I had this Quran that was animated and it opens up and you see the two AK-47s you hearing the voice of an Imam and I wanted to look at what is happening in Nigeria now and the Kansara Weewa thing for me stood very strong because you know how he questioned what was happening in the Delta and he died for that and there was something about Asagai that spoke to the young people from Nigeria who went out of Nigeria to go and study and they went back home and there were animosities that started happening with some of the death spots that were running in the country and so I was saying us who live today have experienced what he is 50 years ago thinking our scenarios that might happen in the country and we had the beginning of the piece the voice of just forgotten his name of a first black DJ that was in Chicago that we used to open the piece and I worked with a lady called Iris Don Parker from Chicago just to get the authenticity of these characters and she was able to her contribution to our work and the kind of research that was done and for me it was we are doing Raising in the Sun in 2016 in South Africa but there has to be a stamp that says we are aware of what is happening on the continent and how do we bring it into the piece without messing up the piece and it was done with a lot of respect and a lot of humility to what Lorraine Henspie wrote and just one more thing that I wanted to say is when you hear that even a theater like the market this was the first time that Raising in the Sun was staged tells you that there is a whole lot of writers that were never staged in South Africa I said last night that we did a lot of Ben at Shaw, we have done Mamet, Sam Shepard and all these American writers but we have been now researching at the market with stage I've directed James Baldwin's I've done George Seawolf's Colored Museum and I've just directed Jeff Stetson's The Meeting and we did this piece and we're putting these works on the palettes of our patrons and they are absolutely enjoying them and in one interview a person said to me are you going to adapt the piece and we're talking about Colored Museum I said I can't adapt it it's set in America, where else can I set it it's a satire on slavery but that was a person who is not used to this kind of tapestry that I feel as an artistic director of the market that we can't be nostalgic about the market and the market theater as a theater needs to move on and moving on talks to how we get to curate these works and create a visibility of writers that our audience are not used to see so we have time for questions if anyone in the audience has a question you can join us at the microphone in the middle of the aisle here as I tell my students we also take words of encouragement and comment too My name is Dominique Lallement I'm French thank you very much all of you my only word of Swedish I think it's extremely exciting what you are doing and I'd like to come back to the question of universality of the theme in the play and I was wondering looking into the future whether you would see with people from many more different origins both in terms of races, nationality ethnicity potentially languages thank you okay I actually don't think that's a question for me I think that's a question for joy in terms of the play going on elsewhere it already has as I understood Ukraine was one of the places to deliver the play is that right? well as I said the play has been translated into over 30 languages this one play which means it has entered into those cultures we understand that right so that's automatically by taking it into the language you take it into the cultural experience by transforming I mean it grounds the story in its universality Lorraine had a very strong law a lack of a better word that this play was founded it was really based in its universality but at the same time it was never to be a product of black face it was never to be taken out of the black experience out of the south side of Chicago out of the American experience and so that's something that I have to I have to abide by I can't allow it to be changed in any way I know that there have been requests in the past to to for casting reasons work around how the play is set up I was contacted on my watch as literary executor I was contacted for permission for the royal theater national theater of Australia to produce the play and to instead of working with the with the black family because of casting challenges to make some of the characters white Australians and was I open to this I said absolutely not I said you have an extraordinary opportunity with an aboriginal population and I would suggest that you think about that and I never heard from but that was as much of a challenge for me as it was for them I believe because I really I really needed to think about that but one of the one of the adaptations that I granted several years ago I was approached by a company from Nepal who wanted to translate the play into Sanskrit and we talked over some time they wanted to keep the play as is only that Nepalese actors would perform but they would still be the youngest from the south side of Chicago I spoke to them at length and felt comfortable with it and granted permission I asked that they please send me a copy of the script when it was published they sent me this beautiful book it's just this beautiful book I opened it there are photographs of the book of the younger family but in Nepalese style and it just broke my heart it was so beautiful so I think there's the opportunity for us to enter into the experience in a legit way and at the same time to honor that all the universality that's needed Hansberry has written it's all there first it's here to experience this and I want to thank the person that invited me my name is Debra Watts and I'm the cousin of Emmett Till and I'm here in this city to address some very key issues related to progression and things going forward meeting tomorrow with the attorney general to talk about the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crimes Act and bill that is law but let me just say that the presence of Mamie Till Mobley Emmett Till as you called the name of Mike Brown and others is here and the truths that you all represented tonight is the universal nature of our dilemma and that is we need to unite somehow and with the different languages it was just a beautiful canvas of what we need to be and so I thank Bahrain in her youthfulness and in her deep nature of trying to address a painful time she was part of the Emmett Till generation and so I can see themes of that pain and what she was experiencing and how it impacted the lives of many artists during them and I know that Emmett's the presence and the spirit is part of it so even though you never said it or whatever I felt it and I'll just say it's deep and you continue to do what you're doing because this is very important so I appreciate your opening eyes your opening hearts and that's exactly what we need done so thank you very much for all of your support thank you Hi, my name is Benjamin Lillian I'm a junior in the college at Georgetown and I want to thank you first for a phenomenal performance tonight you showed us the power that theater can have to inspire people to do things and this question goes to all the directors and everyone on stage but it might be more relevant for me I was wondering if you could speak a little bit to how you had auditioned processes and casting and drew from a well of a black actor community in Sweden because personally there are a lot of theater there are a lot of students here who are active in theater on campus and the big problem we have is incorporating diversity in our student productions so I'm wondering if you could speak about how you overcame that challenge in developing a black cast for this production and of course everyone else that was there in Sweden when we started the casting one of the first things I did was that it was open I wasn't choosing people in that way the second thing is that I auditioned approximately 47 Afro-Swedish actors and no more there weren't any then the choice was to be because there aren't there yet they're not there coming even as I speak that has changed I think what you brought up was very important that it was not going to be cast in any other way than is written that was gone there was only going to be an Afro-Swedish ensemble doing that that was out beyond so for example Kajö is one of the most well known musical theatre actresses we have in Sweden known for your albums, Eurovision that's her background it's true it's true so thanks to Lorraine I pushed the boat out and I looked in other ways our beneath was an extremely talented musical composer who came and sang on that day she was so scared I stopped her so that she could start again because she hadn't done anything quite like this before Lorraine forced us to keep going and not give up and go for the nearest also when it came to the roles of Asagai etc etc we went as far out as we could going beyond the pool of trained actors as well then as availability and who is available I still have the file at home with all of those actors in it for me it was never going to be any other way I was never going to do anything else and for us in Sweden I think the the chance to do the piece just in the principle of this was going to be except for one principle character an all Afro-Swedish production pulled people out in a way that I hadn't expected and although 47 sounds little in terms of the overall it was maybe 50 or 60 CVs in the end when we pulled it together but we had men apply for it we had white guys apply for it we had white women apply for the roles and we sent those back and said no we will keep going on this so the casting of it really was to listen to it and in Sweden anything else you wanted to add to the casting it was a callback as well it wasn't just well I've got you now this was actually a callback and going through it and putting your foot down and going it will be like this because this play demands it and we will keep going until we find the person and we will not sit and justify why it needs to be like that neither the play nor the casting of it and that was very interesting with the whole theatre there wasn't resistance but there was definitely how is this going to work I said trust me we need to catch up it will work so that's how we dealt with it but the Swedish context is very different in terms of theatre schools in terms of the applications into theatre schools the encouragement, the types of plays that are coming out now in terms of classical work in Sweden after raising in the sun so that's an answer to it and I'm working to make sure it's not the last one so that's how we kind of dealt with it I don't think there's, do you want to add any I'd like to understand what do you mean the problem is in terms of finding working on the diversity here so that was within student productions, student companies a big thing that we are talking between so there are five main student companies on campus other people in here will speak more to that they are can all the students who are active in theatre raise their hand maybe stand up please so just a topic that has been on through all of our on our listservs and our emails and our brochures that and our forums between us is trying to incorporate because we recognize that there is a problem of diversity in one just student population also then in terms of active activity in theatre and that is something that we are trying to try to address in our productions and people involved both on stage and backstage on the grander scheme well you know I don't know I don't know Georgetown very well but I do know that when I was in school I went to Morehouse College so I mean obviously thank you obviously there wasn't a problem with finding black actors um but I will say that I mean without going into what kind of project specifically you all are trying to put on which might have a little bit to do with it um I know for a fact that some of the best actors that ended up on that stage weren't majors um there's a guy that I graduated with Brian Tyree Henry he's on the show Atlanta right now he was on Broadway in um what's-a-me-call-it-the South Park Guy show Book of Mormon, thank you um names names names names he definitely one of my best friends definitely wasn't a major and if nobody had nobody had pushed them in that direction if nobody had had an open call that said you know show up then all of those things that came after might not have happened so if it's a matter of you don't have enough black majors I can't imagine that you don't have enough black students on campus to that you can't feel five six roles so it's just a matter of I don't know how maybe spreading out spreading out where you're looking the question to others he was not just centered around ethnic diversity there's also income background anything major is anything else people who can be active in theater of course um racial is a big part of it yeah yeah yeah maybe widening that pool a little bit thank you just wanted to quickly address we're having the same issue I teach at Montgomery College we have three campuses and the campuses have their own personalities they have their own student populations but one of the things I want to experiment with is what is theater I know that you guys do that here as well so we're talking about when we talk about to piggyback project specific work I think that if you also think about and I'm sure you guys are doing this as well we're creating opportunities that come from conversations conversations that with a discipline conversations with a club will create something that may not have started off as a play that was produced somewhere else that is a brick and mortar kind of on the stage play but I know you guys are playing with things that are site specific I just encourage you keep on doing those kinds of projects and what you're going to find is that it's we're going to probably the theater for it to continue to grow is probably going to leave this building it's going to be in somebody else's community it's going to be site specific it's going to be those types of things so continue to develop your conversation skills with different the very audiences that you wanted I said audiences and I think I meant that the very people you want to be in conversation with both in the process backstage on stage and out there in your audience keep looking for that audience and let the theater find them as opposed to trying to bring them in thank you thank you we have we have time for one last question I know a family this is so beautiful hello my name is I'm from Baltimore Maryland and I wanted to ask since you said that people in Sweden never heard of Lorraine Hansberry and I wanted to know if any play playwright in Sweden was just as powerful as Lorraine Hansberry and who they are and who we need to know first first of all one of the things I've learned is for the question and secondly the answer is no no thank you my name is Sarayami and I'm from Baltimore Maryland and I wanted to ask how the play related to the theme how is being African-American then and now is it different or do you feel it's the same where are you Lorraine thank you first of all for the question I think it's something for all of us really isn't it does anyone else want to take it off it's um it's the same and it's moved on I think the details change but the rhythm kind of stays similar our black rhythm stays our family stays our hopes and our dreams stay the struggle continues wherever we are thank you thank you thank you everyone