Shadow/land World Premiere Debuts April 13 | Playbill

Off-Broadway News Shadow/land World Premiere Debuts April 13 The play by Erika Dickerson-Despenza is part of The Public Theater's digital spring season.
Candis C. Jones and Erika Dickerson-Despenza Joseph Marzullo/WENN

The Public Theater presents the world premiere of Erika Dickerson-Despenza's audio play Shadow/land April 13 as part of its spring digital theatre season. The play is available for free, on-demand streaming at Public Play Now as well as on all podcast platforms.

Playwright Erika Dickerson-Despenza is the Public's 2019-2020 Tow Foundation playwright-in-residence and a Laurents/Hatcher Foundation Award and Lilly Award recipient. She recently won the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize for cullud wattah, which was meant to debut at the Public last year but was canceled due to the pandemic.

//assets.playbill.com/editorial/0d3b434a6241ca90a8a452268834dd90-shadowland-enhancement.jpg
Clockwise from top left: Sunni Patterson, Michelle Wilson, Erika Dickerson-Despenza, Candis C. Jones, and Lizan Mitchell Courtesy of The Public Theater

Candis C. Jones, also a recipient of a New York Women's Foundation Lilly Award, helms the production featuring Te'Era Coleman, Lizan Mitchell, Lance E. Nichols, Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Sunni Patterson, and Michelle Wilson.

Shadow/land is the first installment of a 10-play cycle examining the ongoing effects of Hurricane Katrina and urban renewal in New Orleans. The story centers on Ruth, who coaxes her mother to sell the family business, Shadowland, New Orleans’ first air-conditioned dance hall and hotel for Black people, just as Hurricane Katrina begins its strike on the city.

Shadow/land began as a recovery project through which I resurrected my family's business, as all photographs of Shadowland were claimed by the flood that followed Hurricane Katrina,” says Dickerson-Despenza. “The play grew into a timely meditation on how apocalypse clarifies or redirects our wanting. It is an epic exploration of queer Black southern women navigating disaster, duty and desire.”

The audio play features original music from composer Delfeayo Marsalis and sound design by Palmer Hefferan. Listen to a trailer below.

 
Theatre Alternatives
 X

Blocking belongs
on the stage,
not on websites.

Our website is made possible by
displaying online advertisements to our visitors.

Please consider supporting us by
whitelisting playbill.com with your ad blocker.
Thank you!