🚶🏽 WHAT TO SEND UP WHEN IT GOES DOWN by Aleshea Harris (in-person)
MN: presented by Pillsbury House + Theatre, directed by Signe V. Harriday
NY: presented by Playwrights Horizons, BAM, in association with The Movement Theatre Company, directed by Whitney White
I covered this show back in July, and the lucky people of New York and the Twin Cities have a chance to see it right! now! If you haven't yet gone back to the theatre, it's a great play to begin with, because it can only be live and in-person.
A reminder:
The play was created for a Black audience but all are welcome. The intention of the play is to create a space for as many Black-identifying audience members as possible.
🚶🏽watch outdoors at Pillsbury House + Theatre
💰 tickets here for $35
‼️ through September 28
💉 masks required; outdoors; audiences encouraged to bring their own seating
🚶🏽watch in-person at Playwrights Horizons
💰 tickets here for $35
🗓 September 24 - October 17
💉 proof of vaccinations and face masks required
🚶🏽 SANCTUARY CITY by Martyna Majok, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, remount directed by Caitlin Sullivan
presented by New York Theatre Workshop in person at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
From NYTW:
In early 2017, Martyna wrote the first draft of Sanctuary City in a fever pitch of three days, inspired by a young, undocumented character from another play she was writing at the time, Queens, and memories of growing up in Jersey. A few months later, the Department of Homeland Security sought to end the program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
What I loved about Sanctuary City is how effectively it made the political personal. National conversations about immigration and DREAMers so often take place in the abstract, and it can be all too easy—at least for me—to lose track of the overwhelming stakes and sacrifices of being an undocumented American. Sanctuary City brings those to the surface, and it is gut-wrenching. Majok effortlessly juggles the high stakes and the humor and foibles of teenagers stuck in a dreadful situation. I don't think it's too much a spoiler to encourage you to look forward to an absolutely incredible prom scene.
Sanctuary City is also a play where the writing, direction, design, crew, and actors are working together in lockstep. The production is meticulously paced and superbly executed. Actors Jasai Chase-Owens and Sharlene Cruz give some of the most vulnerable and devastating performances I have ever seen. It is a pleasure to watch actors work with such trust in each other. I've rarely been in an audience that was so focused on the moment-to-moment lives of the characters—there were gasps and laughs and sighs all throughout the play.
tl;dr
There are a million reasons to recommend this play: the writing; the acting; the story; the indictment it offers of Americans' complicity in ignoring and avoiding the immigration crises that the US government's decades-long foreign policy created. Watch if you're feeling disenchanted with the state of the country and the world—it will bring home why the stakes are too high for any of us to check out of the political conversation.
🚶🏽watch in person at the Lucille Lortel Theatre
💰 tickets here starting at $36.75
🗓 through October 10
💉 masks, proof of vaccination, and a photo ID required
p.s.
Really, though. Broadway coming next time.