In case you have trigger to go to Atlas Performing Arts Middle in Washington, D.C., I like to recommend taking the lengthy stroll down H Avenue from Union Station. The primary hundred yards are lower than scenic, however when you cross the bridge, you will see that your self within the H Avenue Hall, a historic industrial district various in inhabitants and delicacies, coloured by the town’s excellent avenue artwork, adjoining to historic establishments and picturesque rowhouses, and touched by the continued results of gentrification.  

This little slice of D.C. is the topic of the multi-year H Avenue Oral Historical past Venture, which culminates March 16-17 with a competition centered on readings of three new performs. The performs, impressed by interviews with space residents, are written by Dane Figueroa Edidi, Gethsemane Herron-Coward, and James J. Johnson. The readings shall be accompanied by discussions curated by the D.C. Historical past Middle, excursions led by Justice Walks, and meals samples from H Avenue hotspots (I’m crossing my fingers for Dangerously Scrumptious Pies). All of it takes place at Atlas beneath the purview of Mosaic Theater Firm and is supported by a grant from the Nationwide Endowment for the Arts, the Eugene M. Lang Basis, and a bunch of native funders. 

The mission is the brainchild of D.C.-based author, director, and actor Psalmeyene 24. Psalm, as he’s recognized, pitched the mission in 2019 as a part of his software to be Mosaic’s Andrew W. Mellon playwright-in-residence, reckoning it might match the corporate’s ethos.

“Understanding that Mosaic had an actual funding in theatre that resonated with the group was a part of [the appeal],” Psalm recalled. “After which excited about my imaginative and prescient as a storyteller and being invested in illuminating tales which can be rooted within the Black expertise not directly—this mission appeared like the right match.”  

Mosaic meticulously laid the muse for Psalm’s imaginative and prescient beneath the management of creative director Reginald L. Douglas. All through 2021 and 2022, the corporate and mission dramaturg Jordan Ealey fostered connections with native historical past and social justice organizations and recognized interview candidates via each private affiliations and group outreach. Then they matched every playwright with a various handful of residents: artists and group leaders, D.C. natives and transplants, Black and white individuals. Interviews befell on Zoom in 2023, with Ealey serving to to prep the playwrights.

Every interview was recorded, and shall be added to the archives of the D.C. Public Library beneath the auspices of the D.C. Oral Historical past Collaborative—successfully making historical past in additional methods than one. “That’s one of many core elements of the mission that excites me and evokes me,” mentioned Douglas. “I imagine in new performs as a result of I wish to assist create a brand new canon of theatre that facilities tales just like the H Avenue Oral Historical past Venture has collected. However I’m additionally so enthusiastic about having the voices of this group, the D.C. residents who don’t typically get talked about or who might be forgotten, residing within the D.C. public file by being within the library.”  

From the start, Psalm has sought to anchor the gathering course of by centering a pivotal occasion within the neighborhood’s historical past: the civil unrest following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968. On the time, H Avenue was certainly one of a number of distinguished facilities of Black commerce, all of which had been hit arduous by looting and violence that overshadowed makes an attempt at political mobilization by native activists.  

The occasions left the realm blighted for many years. Jane Lang, the profitable litigator who based Atlas Performing Arts Middle and contributed to the mission with time and funding, first visited H Avenue in 2000 and located it riddled with crime and empty heaps. A white girl of some means, Lang was very a lot an outsider, however she finally received backing for her imaginative and prescient to rework an previous film theatre right into a multi-purpose performing arts venue. “It was not essentially enthusiasm for the mission itself however recognition that there was nothing higher that was going to come back alongside any time quickly and [the community] was determined to see the neighborhood revived,” Lang admitted matter-of-factly.

Throughout its growth, Lang pitched the Atlas because the “future Individuals’s Kennedy Middle.” Since opening in its new type in 2006, it has certainly develop into an lively (and comparatively inexpensive) arts hub, internet hosting solo performers, corporations, and festivals that may not have the means to current their work elsewhere. As for H Avenue itself, Lang contends that the broader push for growth has been an inarguable success. She cites seeing just one sit-down restaurant within the hall in 2000; now there are dozens sitting alongside new grocery shops, companies, and multi-family housing items.   

When requested concerning the high quality line between revitalization and gentrification, Lang is fast to level out that city growth strikes in cycles. One might argue that historical past strikes a lot the identical method: Proper earlier than Psalm formally joined Mosaic in July 2020, Dr. King’s assassination acquired what Psalm himself described as a becoming however tragic companion, i.e., the homicide of George Floyd and subsequent outcry. For Psalm, utilizing the occasions as bookends was the best alternative to discover what has gotten higher for Black individuals since King’s demise in 1968—a Black president, for instance—and what appears to haven’t (ranges of unemployment and incarceration).

From this widespread framework comes a various trio of performs. Although drawn from the nicely of group contributors, every bears the mark of its author’s disposition, to not point out their very own lives on H Avenue. Gethsemane Herron-Coward’s George On H, for instance, is the story of a younger man, caught in a state between life and demise, who returns to his neighborhood and finds it modified. It’s impressed by the individuals who misplaced their lives within the riots, but in addition by the ways in which Herron-Coward, a local of the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia (DMV) space, has been processing these exact same modifications in a spot she is aware of very nicely.  

“I spent a lot time on H Avenue going to Style of Jamaica for lunch, strolling up and down, seeing so lots of my family and friends members who had properties” within the neighborhood, she recalled.  Sadly, lots of the impartial distributors she remembers—Murray’s Grocery Retailer, the place she would get pleasure from a soda, for instance—have been changed by company chains. “To have the ability to take part on this mission is to not solely get to study extra about historical past, but in addition to have an outlet for the grief that I really feel about that.”

For Dane Figueroa Edidi, a Baltimore native who has lived in D.C. on and off since 2002, a lot of the work comes again to belonging. “What I did study from the interviews was the methods by which some group members actually, actually confirmed up for the group,” she mentioned. She described one interviewee who opened her dwelling as much as one other household through the 1968 riots and ended up internet hosting them for a number of extra years. A way of dwelling pervades her play, Smoke, a couple of Black trans girl who strikes into her grandmother’s home on H Avenue after she dies and kinds a bond along with her new neighbors.

Centering a lady like herself whereas exploring this historical past additionally engages Figueroa with the political considerations of the Nineteen Sixties, lots of which—the need of collective uplift, resisting trans erasure—stay in competition at this time. “We discuss concerning the Civil Rights Motion throughout the mainstream, however there was additionally the Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, proper?” she says of the 1966 response to police harassment of queer residents in San Francisco, a precursor of the extra well-known Stonewall Riot in New York Metropolis. “There was a lot cross-movement work, particularly by Black LGBTQ individuals telling the world to see them as their full selves.”

Although not divorced from political realities previous and current, James J. Johnson’s play Central Time, a “large journey sci-fi comedy” a couple of girl transported again in time to the day earlier than Dr. King’s assassination, has a unique tone than that of its counterparts. Discovering humor in sudden locations is one thing Johnson credit to his father, a preacher who apparently missed his calling as a comic. “The humor shouldn’t be coming from the trauma,” he identified, “however in how we relate to one another when stress is excessive or when the stakes are excessive.” 

Of the three, Johnson is the latest to playwriting and actually nonetheless identifies primarily as an actor. However like his colleagues, he’s hardly new to the realm and its historical past. In 2006, he served as a manufacturing assistant for a DVD exploring Black historical past and tradition on H Avenue, produced by hotghettomess.com. Whereas the web site was criticized in some circles for “not essentially exhibiting the very best of the African American expertise,” the chance uncovered Johnson to prescient critiques of gentrification and to historical past that exposed itself via interviews with locals.  

Johnson would return to the realm a number of occasions over in quite a few roles at Atlas. Certainly, Atlas is one thing of a house to lots of the mission’s creators: Psalm recollects innocently trespassing on the unfinished grounds with a troupe of fellow dancers whereas the constructing was being renovated within the early 2000s. Figueroa credit a manufacturing of Erik Ehn’s play Form, staged there by the multidisciplinary firm Drive/collision, as giving proof that she had what it took to be a number one woman. Interviewees who contributed to the mission can have their very own alternative to make recollections by taking part in conversations following the readings in the event that they so select. 

Finally, the competition is about spotlighting those that donated their tales and celebrating the group at giant. Douglas mentioned he’s trying ahead to seeing artists and interviewees share this expertise, and alluded to plans for persevering with the work with assist from Lang. And whereas there may be all the time hope the performs can have a full life after the readings, for Psalm, the mission is about conserving to that communal ethos.

“I feel it’s extra about how we relate to our viewers,” he says, “and ensuring that we’re not solely creating theatre in a sure place, however we’re working with the individuals who dwell there in a method that feels integral to the art-making.”

Assuming they succeed, the competition will stand as a becoming tribute to a neighborhood that has itself been integral to the lives of those and lots of different artists. 

Jared Unusual (he/him) is the director of schooling and group packages at The Nationwide Theatre Basis, in addition to a author, dramaturg, scholar, and educator primarily based within the Washington, D.C. space.

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