The themes and lessons from her bestselling book, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together, will take center stage at BATC’s The Sum of Us One-Act Festival from Feb. 29 through March 17. The festival will present a collection of six one-act plays from local playwrights Rickey Wax, Roger Calderon, Kathleen Culebro, Shyama Nithiananda, Olivia De Guzman and Alex Lead. Each 10-minute performance takes inspiration from McGhee’s analysis of racism, its impact and the need for social justice.
“It's such an honor that the book’s themes resonate so powerfully that folks are inspired to write plays about it,” McGhee says. “It's a really great opportunity to be part of that creative moment with the playwrights, so it's quite exciting.”
McGhee will be in attendance at the event March 15–16 with her mother, Dr. Gail Christopher, another celebrated author and speaker. The pair will also participate in a post-performance conversation and book signings. Although the basis for each play is based on McGhee’s own work, she feels that not knowing the plots of the plays adds a sense of surprise that makes her all the more eager to make a return to Dallas, a city she is no stranger to.
“I've been working with the Dallas philanthropic community now for 10 years or more, and so I've come to Dallas, back and forth a few times, and feel a kinship with the work on the ground to achieve racial healing and racial equity,” McGhee says. “So it's really fitting and wonderful that this one-act play festival is happening in Dallas, where there's so much good community work being done, and I'm just very excited to have a homecoming and see how the themes of the book — themes of how we all suffer when we're divided, how the economic inequality is causing unnecessary harm to so many families — how those kinds of themes that the playwrights have been exploring are going to be brought to life on the stage.”
Each of the six plays will embody themes from McGhee’s book in a one-act slice of life. Each play follows a different narrative and setting, but director Rebecca McDonald believes that just like each playwright, each story embodies various perspectives and walks of life.
“As a community, these are all of our stories,” McDonald says. “We are all affected by policies that are made by stories that we share. And so with [artistic director Teresa Coleman Wash] choosing different playwrights that will speak to different people who come to see the festival, that's one of the best benefits we have. We love the differences.”
As a member of her local theater, McDonald says it is important for community groups like BATC to not let issues highlighted in books such as The Sum of Us continue to sit by the wayside — and that it's important for BATC to embody the book’s themes of change and to share such stories and lessons with the Dallas community. By having McGhee in attendance, McDonald finds the festival to be exciting and unnerving, as she was deeply impacted by the book and the plays it inspired.
“I want [McGhee] to be proud of what she sees and proud of the inspiration that she has given to these playwrights and inspirations she'd given to me as a director,” McDonald says. “It does make me nervous. But if I wasn't nervous, if I wasn't a good kind of nervous and exhilarated by this, then it wouldn't be worth doing. If something doesn't inspire you to feel like you have to be on your A game, then go home. Don't bother doing it.”
“I've been working with the Dallas philanthropic community ... and feel a kinship with the work on the ground to achieve racial healing and racial equity." – Heather McGhee
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Christopher says she hopes the Dallas community will feel a stronger sense of connection, not only with her daughter and her book but with their own communities. Ultimately, she thinks the message of The Sum of Us is the notion that people are interdependent and interconnected and that democracy, community and well-being are tied to valuing that connection.
“I guess my hope is that the emotions that are evoked in the place, that the messages that are conveyed, that they align with that understanding, and that people have this sort of epiphany moment where they realize we are better when we're all better,” Christopher says. “All of this noise that wants to do something different, to divide us, polarize us, etc. — it's just noise. We're human beings who need each other in order to make a democracy work.”
With her book being the inspiration behind BATC’s festival, McGhee hopes every member of the cast, crew and audience can take away that same sense of connection from the dialogue and narratives of the performances. With her special connection to writing, McGhee also hopes that BATC’s selected playwrights and other authors or authors-to-be in the audience can see the power of the stories one can tell and the impact and influence they can have on individuals and whole communities.
“When you write, it's just this sort of blind offering to the world,” McGhee says. “What's thrilling about the idea of adaptation and interpretation is that that dialogue continues. And as a writer, seeing what these six playwrights felt when they read my book, and what stuck with them, what images it put in their minds, what other characters came to life is just a very exciting creative collaboration that has moved The Some of Us, which already was full of characters and spanned history from the 17th century to today, forward. That’s just very exciting and special to see.”
The Sum of Us One-Act Festival runs Feb. 29 – March 17 at Bishop Arts Theatre Center, 215 S. Tyler St.
