Drapetomania: A Negro Carol at We Will Dream: New Works Festival

Drapetomania: A Negro Carol

By M.D. Schaffer

Directed by David Kote

Confronted with the devastating reality of police brutality and institutionalized racism, interracial couple Maggie and Wayne must face what it means to raise a Black child in today’s landscape. Battles arise when the ghosts of L.D Barkley, Anna J. Cooper, and John Brown recruit Wayne to become a modern-day African-American civil rights leader, as bigoted and bitter Samuel Cartwright desperately fights for the reinstatement of chattel slavery. As the chaos ensues, the characters are suddenly challenged with their own fictionality, begging the question: who and what has the power to control and resist?