A Note from the Director, Kevin R. Free

Dear Reader:

I used to curate a blog called “Holy Sh*t! I’m Black.” It was a lighthearted look at all of the times in life when Black people realize exactly how different they are from the people with whom they are living, talking or collaborating. The blog was my attempt to use humor to explain my existence. Why don’t I understand why my friend shaves his face in the shower without a mirror? Ohhhhh, right. Right. Because I’m Black.

When I saw the first version of Pass Over at Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago, way back in the Before Times, my partner and I left the theatre in silence. We passed by patrons expressing outrage and grief, walked down a set of stairs and through the lobby. We walked towards the elevated train, and he broke the silence. He said, “Wow.” I said, “Yeah.” Then he said, “that may have been the best play I’ve seen since… ever.” Then I exhaled. Because I agreed. I was moved and frightened and outraged by this play. It spoke to me through all its layers of grief and dread and anger and even joy, and I was so nervous that my partner, a white man, would not be able to appreciate the play’s protest or its assertion of the truth about

black fear. I was so wrong. And when I exhaled after he spoke about the play’s right to life, I realized I had been holding my breath, steeling myself to defend the play and its existence in the same way I have had to steel myself to leave home to be an artistic leader, or you know, just to leave home in this Black body. It was another “Holy Sh*t! I’m Black” moment.

Here we are making this play now during this damned pandemic; this existential threat we are all experiencing, regardless of race. Rehearsing this play while dodging Covid has been quite the metaphor. Covid lurks around the corner, even when we know for sure we will be free from it. If we let down our guard, it sneaks up on us. The minute we think we are free, we are reminded that we are not. We are mystified by Covid. But still, we live with it, we engage with it, we make decisions about it, we change our minds about it, we strategize new ways of dealing with it. We have to, or we won’t survive it, and it seems it’s not leaving us anytime soon.

I found, as I wrote this, that I was trying to justify my experience and this play’s existence to you, dear reader. I assumed you would not be Black; I assumed you were as exhausted as I am by the twin pandemics of Covid-19 and racial injustice. I assumed that I would need to choose my words carefully, so as not to offend you. I wondered, as I imagined seeing the sunrise of understanding on your face, why it was so difficult to write and why I still chose to write it, assuming I’d never see that particular sunrise, until it hit me, again: Holy sh*t. I’m Black.

Dreaming of that Sunrise,

Kevin R. Free January 2022