Atlanta Playwrights Join New Series, Equitable Dinners: Lift Every Voice

As we navigate social distancing, it's easy to be overwhelmed. It can be difficult to discern which issues still need our attention right now. However, each day brings more data showing the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 on communities of color. It's clear that calling out and dismantling structural racism, working toward greater equity, and connecting with each other remain vitally important.

Equitable Dinners: Lift Every Voice is a free, live, monthly conversation series featuring art, experts, and an opportunity to connect with your neighbors locally and around the world to talk about race and equity. Each month, we will hear from a new expert, watch a 10-minute play written for the event, and join together in conversation. Produced by Out of Hand Theater, these virtual conversations will occur every third Sunday through September.

Five Atlanta playwrights have been commissioned to write six short world premiere plays. The Lift Every Voice playwrights are Gabrielle Fulton Ponder (Uprising), Amina McIntyre (On the Third Day), Avery Sharpe (Woke), Lee Nowell (Beyond Reasonable Doubt), Dana Stringer (We the Village).

Please join us on May 17, to hear from K. Rashid Nuri and Susan Pavlin as we talk frankly about equity and food, especially during a pandemic crisis, with a short play written by Amina McIntyre.

Reserve your free ticket HERE.

Join us on the following Sundays through September 2020 from 5:00 PM - 6:45 PM, to engage the following topics with an equity lens:

Health - April 19 - Playwright:: Gabrielle Fulton Ponder

Actor: Danielle Deadwyler

Speaker: Dr. Camara Jones, MD, MPH. PHD

Food - May 17 - Playwright: Amina McIntyre;

Actor: TBD

Speakers: K. Rashid Nuri and Susan Pavlin

Economics - June 14 - Playwright: Avery Sharpe; Actor/Speaker TBA

Education - July 19 - Playwright: Lee Nowell; Actor/Speaker TBA

Housing - August 16 - Playwright: Dana Stringer; Actor/Speaker TBA

Voting Rights- September 20- Playwright:Gabrielle Fulton Ponder, Actor/Speaker TBA

Out of Hand Theater is organizing Equitable Dinners Atlanta for September 2020 in partnership with the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, The King Center, Civic Dinners, and Atlanta Public Schools. In response to social distancing guidelines, in September, we will host 500 virtual Dinners for a total of 5000 attendees, in a Zoom room near you. We will have a facilitated conversation about race and equity in every room, launched by the performance of a very short play written for the occasion.

Background: On August 25, we hosted 120 Decatur Dinners for 1200 attendees in Decatur homes, community centers and houses of worship, with a facilitated conversation about race and equity at every dinner table, launched by the performance of a very short play written for the occasion. The evening was planned in partnership with Out of Hand Theater, City of Decatur's Better Together Advisory Board, City Schools of Decatur, Decatur Housing Authority, Decatur Education Foundation, Both And Partners/One Small Change. Decatur Dinners was on NPR's All Things Considered, Morning Edition, CBS 46, and had 2 great articles in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Emory Wire, and Saporta Report.

The Equitable Dinners Atlanta model is based on the work of Dr. Dietra Hawkins, founder of Both And Partners and founding member of the Equitable Dinners Design Team. It is known as the Chicago Dinner model, and was first used by The Human Relations Foundation of Chicago in the 1990's. This dinner model is the foundation of well-known dinner/dialogue models like "On the Table" used by The Knight Foundation and "Common Ground" used by The Cleveland Foundation.