‘Black at the Assassination’ adds an overlooked perspective

Kyndal Robertson and Camika Spencer won teco theatrical Productions’ new play competition in March with their one-act play “Pious.”

“Not only did we win — we won accolades from people we didn’t even know,” Robertson says.

So when the theater company’s owner, Teresa Coleman Wash, wanted to produce a play about the JFK assassination from the black perspective, she called on the playwrights.

The Oak Cliff natives, who are first cousins, began working on the play that would become “Black at the Assassination,” which opens Oct. 17 at the Bishop Arts Theatre Center.

They started by researching what was going on in the city’s black community at the time. They read Elite News founder Bill Blair’s biography, which gave them some perspective on the overall culture at the time. They combed through the Warren Commission

Report for people of color. And they conducted interviews with family, friends and acquaintances.

“It’s Dallas’ story of black people at the assassination. You can’t Google that,” Spencer says. “It’s a big historical moment in our city, and we had no idea what our community was doing.”

The play’s story is told in five vignettes. The first takes place in a fifth-grade classroom and is told from the 10-year-old perspective of Brenda Spencer, Robertson’s mom.

“Their classrooms were all portables,” Robertson says. “Her classroom was the only one with a TV because her teacher had brought one from home to watch.”

The second story is that of another real person, Joe R. Molina, who worked at the Texas School Book Depository.

Robertson and Spencer interviewed Molina, who they say doesn’t like to talk about his JFK connection. According to Molina’s Warren Report testimony, Dallas police came to his home in the middle of the night soon after the assassination, woke his whole family and searched his house before asking him to come in for questioning. The chief of police told the local news media that Molina, a 16-year employee of the book depository, had been associated with “subversive persons.”

Molina was fired about three weeks after the assassination because of rumors that he was a communist and a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald, although Molina worked only on the second floor and said he never knew Oswald. Molina had trouble finding another job after that.

“He was blackballed,” Spencer says.

The stories in the play are fictional but based on these real-life accounts.

Along with tales of the assassination, the play travels through time over the decades until the present, with a view on “progress and the plight of Dallas through the years,” Robertson says.

Spencer, 42, is a singer for Jonathan Tyler and the Northern Lights, a teacher and an artist. Robertson, 33, is a singer and actor who works full time at the UT Southwestern cancer center.

“I’m glad Theresa had the light bulb for this,” she says.

Their first play, “Pious,” is a comedy about “these two ornery old black church women who are on their way to the worst wedding ever,” Robertson says. The writing duo has expanded that play and will produce it again in November.

—Rachel Stone

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The Goods

Chef

Justin Holt is in charge of the Driftwood kitchen while chef/owner Omar Flores is busy starting up Casa Rubia, which could open as soon as October in Trinity Groves. Holt was a cook at Lucia, and he initiated a pop-up restaurant trend in Oak Cliff after he asked Ten Bells Tavern to let him use their kitchen for ramen nights earlier this year. Holt sometimes runs ramen as a special at Driftwood, but the menu largely is Flores’s. “I’m excited to work for Omar,” Holt says. “He’s super intelligent.” Holt says he also enjoys working in a seafoodfocused kitchen, rare for Dallas, he says. And even though he lives in north Dallas, he says he likes the people in Oak Cliff. The menu at Driftwood changes about four times a year. One thing that’s always on the menu is Flores’ signature char-grilled octopus. A three-course tasting menu costs $35 on Tuesdays. Follow Justin Holt on Twitter, @j_holt83, to be in the know on his pop-up dinners.

DriFTwooD

624 W. Davis

214.942.2530 driftwood-dallas.com

AMBiAncE: cAsuAl finE dining

PricE rAngE: $10-$29

Hours:

5-10 P M., TuEsdAy-sATurdAy

1 The Fish

this restaurant, from Oak cliff resident christopher Stanford, has been open only a few months at Jefferson and Polk. excellent fish tacos and decadent crabmeat hushpuppies will have you craving more.

1001 W. Jefferson

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2 Zen

the sushi is among the best in Dallas, but Zen is more than just a sushi place. entrées include miso-marinated chilean sea bass, ginger risotto with sashimi-grade salmon and tokyo ramen with pork and vegetables.

380 W. seventh

214.946.9699 zensushidallas.com

3 Mesa

If the lobster enchiladas are good enough for beyoncé, they are good enough for us.

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Deal or no deal?

Three Wishes Chardonnay (about $3) California

Can a wine drinker survive on $3 wine? Probably, given my experiment with five $3 chardonnays from Dallas retailers. The wines weren’t spectacular, but they mostly delivered value — and what more can someone want from a $3 wine? The biggest problem was not quality, but that the wines were boring. By the fourth night, I was ready for something else.

• Two-buck Chuck ($2.99), the Trader Joe’s private label. This was the weirdest of the five, with lots of tropical fruit (banana even) and very little chardonnay character. It wasn’t bad in the sense that I had to pour it down the drain, but it wasn’t enjoyable, either.

• Three Wishes ($2.99), the Whole Foods private label. I expected most of the wines to be burdened with badly done oak (chips, probably). In fact, three of them didn’t taste of oak at all, and the oak in the Three Wishes was quite well done, assuming you like that style of wine. I don’t, so it wasn’t my favorite.

• Winking Owl ($2.89) from Aldi. My favorite — a straightforward, 1990s-style jug chardonnay with apple and pear fruit and varietal character for those who remember Glen Ellen. I would buy it again.

• Oak Leaf ($2.97), the Walmart private label. This was sweet, probably a couple of percentage points over the line that separates sweet from dry. Again, not awful, but nothing I’d buy again.

• Cul-de-Sac ($2.96), a private label for Central Market. This was sort of sweet, in the way Kendall-Jackson was in the 1990s, but also tasted like chardonnay. —Jeff Siegel Get more dininG news every week on oakcliff.advocatemag.com

With Your Wine

Sweet and sour pork

Buy the country-style pork ribs, mix them with the sauce, and cook in a slow oven. What’s better as the weather gets cooler?

Grocery List

1/2 cup ketchup

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1 tablespoon mustard powder

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1 cup water

Salt and pepper to taste

4 pounds country-style pork ribs, separated into single ribs

1 onion, sliced

1 bell pepper, sliced

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix first eight ingredients together and place in a large Dutch oven with a lid.

2. Add ribs, onion, and bell pepper and mix well. Cover oven and bake for 2 ½ to 3 hours, or until ribs are fork tender. Serves 4, takes about 3 hours

Ask the wine guy

What’s the difference between Old World wines and New World wines?

Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden

The Dallas Arboretum made history with the grand opening of the Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden. This 8 acre one-of-a-kind garden is the world’s most elaborate and interactive garden for children. Designed to enable both the young and the young-atheart to experience nature as they enjoy playing in a museum without walls. Tickets must be pre-purchased online.

Open now with the nationally acclaimed Autumn at the Arboretum festival, featuring over 50,000 pumpkins, gourds, and squash.

Rory Meyers Children’s Adventure Garden

Texas Skywalks and Habitats www.dallasarboretum.org

Texas Skywalks and Habitats