By Mandy Scheuer
Nov. 28, 2020
Edgewood College’s theatre department just wrapped up their social justice play readings. These readings, which took place over WebEx, consisted of three plays, each with a social justice theme. The idea for this, according to director Jeanne Leep, developed over the summer. “Edgewood’s Dominican heritage has ALWAYS had a strong commitment to issues of social justice and our play choices in the past have reflected that,” said Leep in a Nov. 16 email. “As producer of Edgewood College Theatre, I pitched the idea of doing a series of readings on plays with themes of social justice to my colleagues and we all quickly agreed it would be a useful step forward.”
The three plays read were “Sweat” by Lynn Nottage on Oct. 8, “Measure for Measure” by William Shakespeare on Oct. 22, and “Well-Intentioned White People” by Rachel Lynett on Nov. 5. Each of these plays speaks to a different aspect of modern-day social justice issues, discrimination, rape culture, misogyny, and white privilege, primarily.
“We wanted to do plays that would speak to social justice issues AND provide opportunity for our students of theatre,” said Leep. “We also wanted to provide opportunities for new directors, so I was able to hire two new-to Edgewood BIPOC directors for this project, which also happened quickly over the summer.”
Leep described the work in the summer as “hard and filled with learning.” She said the process began with the request for student suggestions on plays for the series, but as these were limited, Edgewood’s Theatre Assembly Planning Committee (TAPCO) representatives gave their input as well. “The TAPCO students helped us narrow the field, but the REAL narrowing came from the ability to obtain the rights to perform the pieces,” said Leep.
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