Today is Juneteenth, what’s become a national celebration of the end of slavery. Local producer, Diane “Bunny” Fleeks is using the holiday to direct a readers’ theatre version of a new play. She learned about it last year at the annual Alaska Theatre conference.
“One of the things about that theater conference is that you hear brand new plays, and last year I was fortunate enough to be part of the public reading of a play called Outrage: Terror in Springfield 1908,” Fleeks said.
“It takes place on the Friday and Saturday and Sunday of the race riot in Springfield, 1908, but it's a story about a family,” Tim Crawford, the playwright said.
Crawford met Fleeks at the conference and worked on the play with her and another Fairbanksan, Jameka Lache Horton.
“I’m really happy to have my play read in Fairbanks. It's actually a new… I've made changes since Jameka and Bunny worked on it in Alaska last year.
So, this is not at all about Juneteenth. But the play was inspired by and spotlights a different historical racial justice event. Crawford says the riot on August 14, 1908 served as a catalyst for the formation of the NAACP the next year.
“I did a pilgrimage to the National Museum for African American History and Culture, and I found the plaque that states ‘the race riot in Springfield, Illinois in 1908 and the growing number of lynchings nationwide, prompted a group of white liberals to call for a meeting to discuss racial justice’,” Crawford said.
Crawford’s play was performed in Springfield last year. It sees the terrible violence of that 1908 weekend through disrupted family routines.
“It’s how that family reacts with the race riot and, and the lynchings going on in the background. I think it's a powerful play that gets at the black community is not a monolith: there's a bunch of different reactions and that there's the potential of generational trauma. There's a, there's a kid in the play who is 11 years old who is caught up in the trauma as well.”
Crawford will be at the performance tonight to talk about the play.
Tonight’s event is in a renamed venue space, T’s on 2 Street, at 514 Second Avenue. Doors open at 6:30.
