White People

About

Production team

Written by: Steven Leigh Morris
Directed by: Besim Ugzmajli

Actors: Shpëtim Selmani, Verona Koxha, Bujar Ahmeti

Art director: Mentor Berisha
Costumes: Njomza Luci
Music: Memli Kelmendi
Translator: Qerim Ondozi
Light: Yann Perregaux
Ass. director: Sovran Ndrecaj
Sound: Bujar Bekteshi
Logistic support: Adem Salihu, Lulzim Rexha, Mursel Bekteshi
Coordination & diffusion: Blerta Neziraj, Flaka Rrustemi, Aurela Kadriu, Jeton Neziraj

Shows

Venue

ODA Theater

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Other informations

In a semi-professional theater in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the theater’s longtime artistic director, Louis, is acting in and directing Shakespeare’s “King Lear”—a play that is a bit like “Cinderella,” about a king who decides to retire and give his estates to two of his three daughters who fulfill his childhood desires at his whim. Louis is white, and in recent decades, under his leadership, he has served the production of plays primarily by white British, European, and American playwrights, not to mention the fact that his theater is located in an African-American neighborhood and was built on the ruins of Black Wall Street, the first racial massacre in more than a century by white barbarians against a thriving African-American neighborhood. As everyone rehearses scenes from the play, two central issues arise. First, because for the roles of Cordelia's scheming sisters, Louis has chosen black actresses, while the good Cordelia is white, Louis remembers that the play that will remain as a mark of his work, could very easily be interpreted as racist. Can he replace Priscilla with a black actress, without risking his theater being considered "stale"* in the middle of a Red State**. And how does Priscilla deal with the possibility of being replaced by another actress for purely racial reasons? The other issue is that Louis is dying of cancer. After a visit from the Angel of Death, he realizes that he will only live until the premiere of the play. What is giving him life is what will take his life. His fellow actors beg him to postpone the premiere, they try to find all sorts of reasons to stop the inevitable premiere, but the liberal Louis is anything but determined.

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