WHERE: Henry Ponder Fine Arts Humanities Center Theater
Background
One of Douglas Turner Ward's short plays, "Day of Absence" is a reverse minstrel show, with black actors in whiteface performing the roles of whites in a small Southern town on a day when all the blacks have mysteriously disappeared.
The play performed at the St. Marks Play House in Greenwich Village was a major success. It ran for 504 performances and won an Obie Award for acting and a Drama Desk Award for writing. Impressed with his work, the New York Times invited Ward to write an article on the condition of black artists in American theater.
Benedict College students, along with Fine Arts Assistant Professor and Stage Director Charles David Brooks, III (CDBIII), researched, analyzed, studied the play, and found that the dialogue written for the townspeople of that day (1960s - 1970s) has come to pass. Brooks' description of the play is that of Political Humor.
