Local Playwrights Take Pride in Having Plays Performed
By Edith Billups and Heather Winfield
WI Staff Writers

Merrill D. Jones, a former creative writing teacher at Banneker High School in Northwest, sat in the audience during the 18th annual reading of the Black Women’s Playwrights Group on June 18 at the Studio Theater in Northwest and watched with pride as her play, “Mrs. Streeter,” was performed.
   
As noted local actress Jewell Robinson delivered Jones’ lines with impeccable diction, Jones felt a sense of joy at seeing her work performed on stage.  Having joined the organization in December 2006, Jones is one of the newest members of the group and was delighted that Karen Evans, president of BPWG, found a venue for her work.
   
“Last year I won the Larry Neal Award given out by the D.C. Commission of the Arts and Humanities for my play, but afterwards there was a void,” Jones said. “Through BWPG, a door opened and I got a reading. That’s all any artist wants–a chance to work on their craft. And this reading was in front of a literary audience.”
  
Evans started the group because “playwrighting is a very lonely profession.” At a seminar at Arena Stage in Northwest in 1989 with 12 scholars and three playwrights, Evans noticed the playwrights did not get to say much.  
   
“There were five minutes left and I used my one and a half minutes to say, ‘Are there other playwrights out there? Please give me your name,’” Evans said. “We met the next month, and we have been meeting ever since.”
   
Evans said the ultimate purpose of the group is to support African American playwrights.
  
The group’s 18th annual showcasing was hosted by acclaimed actress and playwright Sheryl Lee Ralph, who read from her own work, “Sometimes I Cry.”
  
Ralph spoke passionately about her love for theatre and for bringing hidden topics to the surface. Her play detailed the epidemic of the HIV/AIDS virus that plagues the Black community. She said one of her main reasons for creating this short play was to dispel the preconceived notions and stigmas that dominate the minds of Black people. She mentioned that one person, after seeing her play, told her that her piece changed his life.
   
“You never know what people are going to get out of art because art is subjective,” Ralph said. “Even if it’s only one person’s life that I changed, I know I’ve made a difference.”
  
Other works featured included, Christi Cunningham’s “Waiting for Rainbows,” Debbie Minter Jackson’s “Marbles,” Betty M. Buttram’s “Ask Me No Questions, I’ll Tell You No Lies,” Louise V. Gray’s “Where Did Jennifer Lopez Get Her Butt?,” and Stanice Anderson’s “Walking on Water When the Ground Ain’t Enuf.”
   
As several well-known D.C. luminaries, including Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.,) looked on, the actors and actresses on stage gave voice to the emerging playwright’s works.
   
Gray’s work, which featured actress Diedra LaWan Starbes as an air head employee at a plastic surgeon’s office, drew laughs as three women waited to have reconstructive work done. Jones’ “Mrs. Streeter” had the audience actively engaged as Robinson played a controlling mother who interferes in the lives of her children, while being in denial about the ill treatment she receives from her gay son.
  
Jackson, a playwright, writer for the D.C. Review, and member of the BWPG for 12 years, depicted an old ritual that celebrates and remembers the people who died during slavery in her piece “Marbles.”
  
“I am hoping there will be an appreciation for not just the legacy of what we know, but I want people to realize that young people do not recognize how much this legacy has sustained us, and that it continues to be an underscore for the strength of our people,” Jackson said.
  
Following the performances, the playwrights were lauded and congratulated by numerous audience members who commented favorably on the artists’ works.
   
“I loved all of the plays. They were well written, and I thought the actors and actresses did a great job,” said Silver Spring audience member Kay Grimes.
   
This was the first time Anderson, an author and inspirational speaker, had one of her plays performed professionally.
   
“When I wanted to make the transition from author to playwright, I came to [BWPG,] and I, along with several others, got great support. This year, the organization arranged for us to take a free, day-long class on playwriting at American University that was taught by Cathleen Sinnette Jennings.”
    
Lois Wiley, another playwright and member of BWPG, said writing has saved her life.
    
“I was teaching drama and math and didn’t realize that I could write plays. I was one of the founding members after Karen put the call out years ago at The Arena Stage and [I] have been active [ever] since.”
   
As the audience left the building and filed out into the night, award-winning novelist Sharon Bell Mathis commented on the need for more women playwrights of color. 
   
“Black women are magical; they are enchantresses.  D.C. has a very active theater scene, and it is wonderful that these emerging women playwrights will impact upon it.”