THE STORY: Clybourne Park explodes in two outrageous acts set fifty years apart.
Act One takes place in 1959, as white community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family.
Act Two is set in the same house in the present day, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification.
Recipient of the Tony Award® for Best Play and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama..
Bruce Norris' second Horizons play is Clybourne Park, about white flight and gentrification, which features racist jokes, unspeakable contempt, and mental images that would make Mamet blush. It’s also a subtle and well-crafted piece of theater.
While Clybourne Park rips the p.c. mask off polite gentrifiers, Norris notes that his parents moved his family from their Houston neighborhood in part to avoid busing, and that “my primary exposure to anyone African-American up until I was 14 was our maid. There’s no way to escape the fact that I’m a racist,” he adds. “I’d like to imagine I was an android who had only pure thoughts, but I’m a human, and I’m an animal. And I think that’s true for everyone.” (New York Times)
And four years ago I began to write Clybourne Park as a way of looking at how white Americans like me have dealt with issues of race, past and present, and to ask myself whether, in our supposedly sophisticated, post-modern, post-racial world, anything had changed. While working on the play, the US elected its first black President. And we white people congratulated ourselves and celebrated how far we’d come. But then… lo and behold, as the year dragged on and all of the change we’d so eagerly anticipated failed to materialize and as more and more appalling examples of our entrenched, old-fashioned impulses continued exactly as they always had, I began to think… aren’t we more enlightened than that? Aren’t we able to choose? Can’t we change like Obama promised us? Or is it maybe that racism, per se, isn’t really the problem. Maybe it’s the denial of it. Maybe it’s our unwillingness to admit that we all once belonged to a tribe of greedy, violent apes contending over territory with other apes, and that we’re still figuring out what to do with that legacy, as we suspiciously regard each other across the boundaries we live within. (Bruce Norris on Clybourne Park with the Royal Court Theatre, London, UK)
There is no official rating system for live theatre. We encourage you to use your judgment based on your child's age and maturity level.
Act One takes place in 1959, as white community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home to a black family.
Act Two is set in the same house in the present day, as the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification.
Recipient of the Tony Award® for Best Play and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama..
Bruce Norris' second Horizons play is Clybourne Park, about white flight and gentrification, which features racist jokes, unspeakable contempt, and mental images that would make Mamet blush. It’s also a subtle and well-crafted piece of theater.
While Clybourne Park rips the p.c. mask off polite gentrifiers, Norris notes that his parents moved his family from their Houston neighborhood in part to avoid busing, and that “my primary exposure to anyone African-American up until I was 14 was our maid. There’s no way to escape the fact that I’m a racist,” he adds. “I’d like to imagine I was an android who had only pure thoughts, but I’m a human, and I’m an animal. And I think that’s true for everyone.” (New York Times)
And four years ago I began to write Clybourne Park as a way of looking at how white Americans like me have dealt with issues of race, past and present, and to ask myself whether, in our supposedly sophisticated, post-modern, post-racial world, anything had changed. While working on the play, the US elected its first black President. And we white people congratulated ourselves and celebrated how far we’d come. But then… lo and behold, as the year dragged on and all of the change we’d so eagerly anticipated failed to materialize and as more and more appalling examples of our entrenched, old-fashioned impulses continued exactly as they always had, I began to think… aren’t we more enlightened than that? Aren’t we able to choose? Can’t we change like Obama promised us? Or is it maybe that racism, per se, isn’t really the problem. Maybe it’s the denial of it. Maybe it’s our unwillingness to admit that we all once belonged to a tribe of greedy, violent apes contending over territory with other apes, and that we’re still figuring out what to do with that legacy, as we suspiciously regard each other across the boundaries we live within. (Bruce Norris on Clybourne Park with the Royal Court Theatre, London, UK)
There is no official rating system for live theatre. We encourage you to use your judgment based on your child's age and maturity level.
CAST
Russ/Dan Greg Guyton Bev/Kathy Laura Weeldreyer Francine/Lena Joi Kai Jim/Tom/Kenneth Joe Ernest Albert/Kevin J. Purnell Hargrove Karl/Steve Carl Olivi Betsy/Lindsey Cat Bustos |
CREATIVE TEAM
Director Jen Sizer Stage Manager Jane Nitsch Assistant Stage Manager Bill Kohlhoff Lighting Design TBD* Sound Design Jen Sizer Set Design Jen Sizer Costume Design Jen Sizer Props Master Jen Sizer Fight Choreographer Erin Klarner Videographer Alanna Klewe Wardrobe and Running Crew TBD* * if you are interested in assisting, please email [email protected] |
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Meet the Actors from
CLYBOURNE PARK Jen Sizer , Director of
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