Directed by Dr. Ray Black
The 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning drama, Fairview is a candid examination of race in contemporary American society. In a well-off African American household reminiscent of TV sitcoms, a black family prepares for grandma’s birthday. A group of white spectators comments on the scene. When the play reverses the positions between spectator and spectacle, however, the audience is invited to face our deep-seated prejudices, examine the white gaze, and play our parts in America’s story.
Timed to coincide with Black History Month, this brilliant play addresses racial injustice, speaking truth to power in a very theatrical way. In staging a play by Jamaican American playwright Jackie Sibbles Drury (www.jackiesibbliesdrury.com), we also examine issues of who is represented – and how – on our stages.
Note: Fairview is an exciting and intense play that contains strong language, mature themes, and allusions to violent actions with potentially disturbing depictions that would be similar to a PG-13 movie rating. Smoke and strobe-like lighting effects are used.
About Ray Black
Dr. Ray Black is a father, spouse, veteran, and an Associate Professor of African American of Ethnic Studies at Colorado State University. Directing Fairview follows his past of theater time in Sacramento California where he acted in local plays including August Wilson’s “Piano Lesson,” performed all backstage roles for the Sacramento Repertory Theater (Dir. Michael Benjamin), wrote, produced, and directed plays for their youth theater program. With these and other theater roots, he currently performs scholarly research focuses on college access, retention, and graduation of African American and underrepresented populations and teaches courses on African American subjects such as history, media, and protest. He has taught early childhood education (Head Start), has been the coordinator for a non-profit program seeking to keep young men of color in high school, and led campaigns for reform minded school board candidates.
Photos
Colorado State University’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance presents “Fairview,” written by Jackie Sibbiles Drury and directed by Ray Black. Dress rehearsal, February 29, 2024
