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TAKE
by JENNY CALLISON photo by TERAH HOOBLER
Writer and photographer ALICIA INSHIRADU is the founder and CEO of Playingod Films. She’s in the process of transforming a screenplay she wrote as a graduate student in 1998 (and later produced as a short film) into a stage play. A North Carolina Arts Council grant has enabled her to hire STEVE VERNON, of Big Dawg Productions, as stage play script consultant. She hopes to have What the River Knows produced for the silver screen and says there’s a local film producer who is interested. What the River Knows, Inshiradu says, is her gift to the community. TALK ABOUT YOUR CURRENT, VERY CONSUMING PROJECT. “Set against the backdrop of Wilmington’s White Supremacist Massacre of 1898, What the River Knows is an intergenerational tale of family, romance, murder, racial strife, and redemption. I developed the story as a screenplay at UNCW’s grad school in 1998 and in ’99 defended it at ECU where I’d previously completed two years of coursework. In 2017, I excerpted from the longer work a short teaser film script, produced, and directed the film and premiered it at the Cucalorus Film Festival. After an actors workshop, I plan to begin production for an early November 2022 live premiere performance.” YOU HAVE LARGELY WORKED IN FILM, SO WHY A STAGE PLAY? “Well, both formats have overlapped since I first began writing in the ’70s. I’ll be producing and directing an original short film, which will be utilized throughout this current stage play project.” WHERE DO YOU HOPE WHAT THE RIVER KNOWS WILL TAKE YOU? “One of my motivations for writing this piece was to create a character who actually witnesses, becomes an informant of what presently still stands as an undocumented legend surrounding the day of the massacre, November 10: that black men were murdered and thrown into the Cape Fear River. The storyline of this piece has been crafted to ignite a catharsis for an extremely traumatized community that has yet to be redeemed. It is an opportunity to not only understand what happened in 1898 but to understand how it still has adversely affected Wilmingtonians past and present.” WHAT ARTISTIC WORKS HAVE HAD THE GREATEST INFLUENCE ON YOU? “After experiencing in 1997 John Singleton’s movie, Rosewood, a fictional retelling of the 1923 massacre in the black town of Rosewood, Florida, I had to find out what happened in my newly adopted home city of Wilmington. I also love filmmaker John Sayles’ style of handling the past in his 1996 movie, Lonestar. Seeing Spike Lee’s first film, She’s Gotta Have It in the ’80s put the filmmaking bug under my skin. The ’80s Broadway musical Timbuktu!, starring Eartha Kitt, blew me away – the acting, the music, the drama, the costumes, the sets, everything.” IS YOUR CHILDHOOD IN KINSTON OR YOUNG ADULTHOOD IN NEW JERSEY REFLECTED IN YOUR WORK? “… living in the segregated South of the ’50s as a young child, I was sheltered from the realization of American racism and did not get to raise my African heritage and race consciousness until the ’70s. That metamorphosis was a huge influence on who I am today – a researcher, designer, stylist, photographer, collagist, playwright, and screenwriter.”W ALICIA INSHIRADU’s full profile will appear in an upcoming WILMA Roundup email. To sign up for daily WILMA emails, go to WILMAmag.com.
WILMAmag.com
MARCH 2022
WILMA
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