“Day of Absence” at Karamu Asks “What If Black People Vanished?”

Thu 10/25-Sun 11/18

Douglas Turner Ward’s play Day of Absence debuted in 1965, a year after the Civil Rights Act became law and the same year the Voting Rights Act was passed. It was a time when, in response to the Civil Rights movement as well as its limitations, segregationist Democrats were leaving to form the bedrock of the racist Republican party while the Black Power movement was growing in reaction.

In the midst of this, Ward, co-founder of the Negro Theatre Ensemble and for many years its artistic director, asked in the one-act play “What would be the impact if all black people disappeared?”

Karamu has revived and reimagined the play, set in a small southern town where the mayor launches a desperate search for the missing black people: pleading on radio, appealing to the president, governor and NAACP to bring them back. Eventually they start to reappear and things seem to have returned to normal — or have they?

The Karamu production, which runs 75 minutes without intermission, will be directed by Karamu’s Nathan Lilly as part of its social justice series.

Tickets are $40, $35 for seniors, $20 for students 25 and younger with I.D.

karamuhouse.org/ticket-info/49

Cleveland, OH 44106

 

 

 

 

 

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