ALLIANCE THEATRE :: SIT-IN :: 2021

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4 | an introduction This animated piece started out as a play. Or rather it started out as a book. A glorious book written by Andrea Davis Pinkney and beautifully illustrated by Brian Pinkney. The centerpiece of the book is a fold out image of the Greensboro lunch counter rendered as a roller coaster, magically loop de looping across time & space with buses and cars travelling past coffee mugs and donuts and ultimately extending beyond the limits of the page. It’s as if this counter goes on forever, as if the struggle is a continuous journey, rather than a straight line. That image captivated our imagination and inspired a wholly new story written by Pearl Cleage. Pearl’s Sit-In foregrounds a young Atlanta activist, Janet Payne, who at 11 years old has made it her mission to save the world. Literally. Throughout the play, Janet discovers what it takes to follow her moral compass and what is required when you decide to take a stand by sitting in. Her commitment to the cause is breathtaking. Both because of its depth and because of her age. But as Pearl so beautifully reminds us in this play, it’s always been young people at the forefront of social change. And what a year to celebrate young voices! But back to where we started. This was conceived as a play inspired by a book to be performed in front of live audiences in our Hertz Stage in Atlanta, GA. But then came COVID. Faced with the decision to postpone or reinvent, our formidable team of artists fully embraced the latter. Young Janet Payne’s story was more relevant now than ever. Here was a chance to invite families, students, and educators into an intergenerational dialogue about social justice, to celebrate the courage of young people following their convictions. So, within the giant constraints of this pandemic, we dreamed of a new possibility. If we can’t gather in person, how else could we still tell this story? What if we invited some new artists to collaborate with us? Luckily these questions led us to the Palette Group and the talented Adeboye brothers who joined our creative team and made this animated play possible. I want to thank our director Mark Valdez, our playwright Pearl Cleage, and our composer Eugene Russell IV — all of whom have spent their careers in live theatre and all of whom gracefully jumped into this new world of animation so we could still bring this story to all of you. Like the roller coaster lunch counter that inspired us from the beginning, we may not have travelled in a straight line to get there. But here we are, eager to share this story with all of you. So sit down, sit-in and enjoy our first ever animated play!

Christopher Moses Dan Reardon Director of Education & Associate Artistic Director

alliancetheatre.org | @alliancetheatre


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