Confederates
- Full Length Play, Drama, American Civil War Era, Contemporary
- 1M, 4F
- ISBN: 9780573710018
Two Black American women – an enslaved rebel and a professor at a contemporary university – are having parallel experiences of institutional racism, though they live over a century apart. Tony-nominated playwright Dominique Morisseau's exacting new play explores the reins that racial and gender bias still hold over American educational systems today.
Description
- Full Length Play
- Drama
- 90 minutes
- Time Period: American Civil War Era, Contemporary
- Target Audience: Adult
- Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings
- Cautions: Alcohol, Mild Adult Themes, Strong Language
- Performance Group:
- Community Theatre, Blackbox / Second Stage /Fringe Groups, Professional Theatre
Confederates leaps through time to trace the identities of these two Black American women and explore the reins that racial and gender bias still hold on American educational systems today.
REVIEWS:
"Beautiful language that’s wedded to tales of adversity — the play is full of such paradoxes... a work about racism that is truly funny."
The New York Times
"A master at weaving together personal, historical, and social narratives, Morisseau here delivers her most ambitious, possibly most galvanizing, work yet."
Theatrely
"Morisseau’s voice gets fiercer and richer the farther she gets from naturalism. Her sharp humor and flensing rhetoric, familiar from her public letters and program notes, finally get to exert their full power onstage."
Vulture
"From sequence to sequence through the 1860s and the currently ambivalent early 21st-century, Morisseau deals with blatantly racist issues, not missing many."
New York Stage Review
"[Morisseau's] thought-provoking play is sometimes deadly earnest and sometimes surprisingly (but intentionally) hilarious."
Theater Life
Characters
- Casting: 1M, 4F
- Casting Attributes: Reduced casting (Doubling Possible), Role(s) for Black Actor(s), Roles for Multicultural Casting, Expandable casting
SARA – Black woman, early 20’s. Tenacious, spunky, tough and resilient. A slave woman with a fighting spirit, unwilling to be broken by her circumstances. Crafty and a sharp, witty tongue. Slowly becoming a Union Spy.
(1) ABNER – Black man, early 20’s. Energetic and driven. A bit stubborn but strong-willed. A runaway slave and soldier for the Union. Brother of Sara. Loves his sister fiercely.
(2) MALIK – Black man, early 20’s. Studious and focused on his education. Driven and intellectually stimulating. A student of Sandra's who tries to carefully navigate her status over his.
(1) MISSY SUE – White woman, late 30’s, early 40’s. Spirited, driven, a strong sense of duty and mission. Somewhat oblivious. Emotionally free and open. Daughter of Sara's Master. Sara's former childhood friend.
(2) CANDICE – White woman, mid 20’s. Loquacious, intellectually curious, and uncensored in her ideas. Can be misinterpreted as insensitive but is likely unaware. Emotionally free and open. Student and Assistant to Sandra.
(1) LUANNE – Black woman, early 20’s. Curious, eager, and inquisitive. A fellow slave with Sara who has been afforded privileges Sara has not. In an affair with the Master. Pushing for kinship with Sara.
(2) JADE – Black woman, late 30’s, early 40’s. Straight shooter, unafraid of confrontation, down-to-earth. Fellow professor and colleague to Sandra. Navigates institutional racism more directly than Sandra.
Available Material
| Name | Price |
|---|---|
|
Confederates Script
This is optional.
Order Now
Sara, an enslaved rebel turned Union spy, and Sandra, a tenured professor in a modern-day private university, are having parallel experiences of institutional racism, though they live over a century apart. |
$24.95 |
