Thu 2/12-Sun 3/8

Playwright Caleen Sinnette Jennings drew on her own experiences for the three plays that make up her Queens Girl cycle. The third of the plays, Queens Girl: Black in Green Mountains, refers to her culture shock on arriving at the tiny rural campus of Bennington College in Vermont, then known as a school for artsy rich girls. Jennings character Jackie, a stand-in for herself, falls in with “outrageously wealthy ‘WASPS,’ militant black activists and passionate theatre people, as she tries to find her place in the Bennington culture of 1968. Oddly, my sister also entered Bennington in 1968—and never returned after Christmas, finding it too alien from our native south side of Chicago, while Jennings stayed and graduated in 1972.

Karamu opens Queens Girl: Black in Green Mountains this week, with Caroline Jackson-Smith directing. The play runs Thursdays-Sundays through March 8. Get tickets here.