By Megan Bowers, Staff Writer
Every 28 hours a black person is killed by police or a vigilante.
This statistic helped inspire the "Every 28 Hours" project, which grew out of the Black Lives Matter movement, an activist group that fights against racism.
The "Every 28 Hours Plays" are a collection of 72 one-minute plays that are divided into nine clumps. The categories of the clumps range from "police" to "mothers," but all address violence against African Americans in our nation.
"I see it as using the stage to promote dialogue about race, racism, inequities and injustices started in our country," said Katie Johnson, director of the history clump.
The plays are being put on all over the country within a few weeks of each other with the goal of starting a national conversation.
"The idea is organizing theaters simultaneously and using the theatre as that tool to bring people together," producer Ann Elizabeth Armstrong said.
Armstrong stressed that this project is not just about the play itself but about the conversations started by it. The organization requires them to promote community organizations and to host a post-show discussion.
The production has brought people together from Oxford, Hamilton and even Cincinnati. There are professors from several departments including English and Educational Leadership, undergraduate and graduate students and several campus organizations, such as The Walking Theater Project, involved.
Groups from the community have also been invited to contribute to the post-show discussion, including the Oxford branch of the NAACP and the Oxford Community Relations and Review Board, a group of people that advocate for and assist police in police-community relations.
The post-show discussion calls for the audience to form small groups to talk about what they have seen. Durell Callier and Dominique Hill from Hill L. Waters Performance Collective and Mahauganee Shaw and Stephen Quaye from Student Affairs in Higher Education and Mobilizing Anger Collective will be leading the discussion by asking questions and facilitating those conversations.
"We want to know what people are feeling," said Armstrong. "These plays have been written straight out of the headlines, and a lot of the context is that urban context understanding of diversity of cultural points of view and the conflicts around race relations."
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The conversation doesn't stop after that discussion either.
"We're going to be writing about that and tweeting it so that it's a conversation that's not just on the stage one night," said Johnson.
The cast will have a Snapchat takeover during their day-of-show tech rehearsal and will be using the twitter hashtag #Every28Hours.
"It'll make some people uncomfortable, and I hope they take the time to think about why it does that," actor Brenton Sullivan said. "It's not supposed to be settling, but informative and honest. And to shake people up some and make them realize the reality of these stories."
The show's themes can be interpreted differently depending on each person's identity and background coming into it.
"I think that's important that you go into this performance understanding where you are coming from and how you can be a constructive voice to that dialogue, which in some cases just means listening," stage manager Jenny Henderson said.
Henderson emphasized that it is important to understand whether you have white privilege or have experienced the very issues the show talks about.
"For me, this is so much more than a staged reading," actor Anthony Thompson said. "As a black man, I feel like I'm telling stories that might one day save my life or even the lives of those who look like me. And I couldn't be prouder to be a part of this movement."
Armstrong has been trying to get the project started here at Miami for a while, but she said that the rapid spate of events that took place with the shootings and lashing out against police is what really captured everyone's attention and made them want to get involved.
"This is a crucial conversation to be had nationally, but I think it is especially important at Miami because major change starts on a community level," said Henderson.
The production team is hoping this project will bring light to the other voices on out campus.
"We talk about diversity a lot, but we still don't have the diversity in the community that we want, and until we have that diversity, it is hard to see a lot of changes," said Armstrong. "I'm aware this project is definitely about making visible the invisible in our community."
"Every 28 Hours" will be performed at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 22, in Gates-Abegglen Theatre.
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