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A new look at an old problem

Posted on | October 21, 2009 | 347 views |

The Department of Theatre’s fall drama — staged as part of a new Big Ten collaboration — tackles the thorny issue of race relations

By Julia Harris

Kayla Jackmon may not have been alive in the 1960s, but she knows a heck of a lot about that decade just the same — particularly about the year 1967, as experienced by one carefully integrated Detroit neighborhood.

As one of the 10 actors in the play Palmer Park, the first production of the year for the Department of Theatre, Jackmon has done enough in-depth research on this volatile period of American history to discuss it like an expert.

“It’s a really cool play about the dichotomy between a white family and a black family who are next-door neighbors and the troubles that ensue in trying to talk about race and create some sort of urban utopia,” said the fourth-year theatre and international studies major.

Written by acclaimed playwright Joanna McClelland Glass, Palmer Park chronicles the struggle of five couples in 1967 Detroit who are forced to accept black children from a working-class neighborhood into their own high-performing local school.

The drama also is the first selection of the Big Ten Common Script project, a collaborative effort between theatre units on Big Ten campuses that is designed to foster a sense of community and shared creative purpose for all institutions.

“The idea was, wouldn’t it be great if all of us, with our various institutional challenges and differences, could approach a common script,” said Mark Shanda, chair of the theatre department.

“We know that different institutions have different strengths; for instance, Purdue has a very famous sound design program, and Ohio State with our strong research interests can provide greater dramaturgical support. So the idea was to embed the project in each campus, play to its strength and then share the research and dialogue broadly as a common resource.”

Palmer Park was selected as the first play to experiment on with this new vision because of its balance, Shanda said.

“It provides a great foundation for dialogue about issues of race from both sides of the color barrier, if you will, and also of a time period we think today’s college students have pretty much forgotten about.”

Because this project is still in its initial phases, only six of the 11 institutions in the conference have made commitments to do any sort of treatment of the script. Ohio State, Penn State and Michigan State are mounting full-scale productions, while Purdue, Minnesota and Illinois are doing a staged reading or some kind of limited performance.

“The theatre chairs are all meeting again in December, so I think we’ll have a follow-up conversation about this venture, and I hope we’ll be able to project something into the 2011-12 production season so we can expand the dialogue on the subject of theatre across the entire Big Ten.”

Other ideas for collaboration among the Big Ten Theatre Consortium include a vehicle for sharing evaluations and recommendations for new dramatic literature, a rotating two-week festival for the creation and staging of new work and a Big Ten showcase event highlighting achievements of conference theatre graduates.

As to the dialogue that Palmer Park has and will continue to engender, particularly during and after its November staging, there is great excitement among its actors about the potential for dynamic change.

Alex Boyles, a first-year graduate student in acting and a very new transplant from California to Ohio, says the issues the play grapples with were eye-opening to him personally.

“I’m only 24, so I obviously didn’t live through the riots, and coming from southern California I’d thought the race issue was gone,” he said, almost apologetically.

“But reading this play and researching the historical context opened my eyes to the fact that this situation really isn’t over. Even now in the Detroit school system, only 21 percent of students will graduate, and that floors me.”

It’s this kind of naivete — however idealistic in nature — that Maureen Ryan, associate professor of theatre and the director of Palmer Park, wants the production to address.

“Our youthful audience at OSU is the one that needs to see this piece,” Ryan said.

“While the story of this play concerns the period from 1968-71, what is relevant is how little some things have changed  — and, in some instances, gotten worse. It is up to this generation to recognize the problems that still need to be addressed.”

If you go …

Palmer Park will be performed at the Roy Bowen Theatre, Drake Performance and Event Center. Tickets are $18 general admission; $15 OSU faculty, staff, Alumni Association members and senior citizens; $12 students and children. Call 292-2295 or e-mail theatre-tix@osu.edu.

Show Dates/Times
Nov. 4-7, 7:30 p.m.; Nov. 8, 3 p.m.
Nov. 12, 13, 19-21, 7:30 p.m.

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