Jacqueline Lawton: Why did you decide to get into theatre? Was there someone or a particular show that inspired you?
Idris Goodwin: I have always been drawn to live performance. I do hip hop music, spoken word as well---words in the air being caught by an audience is exciting to me. I didn’t really have an appreciation for the theatrical medium until I moved to Chicago for college and started meeting working theater artists. Once I began to see behind the curtain a bit, I got curious “could I write a play?”

JL: Next, tell me a little bit about your writing process. Do you have any writing rituals? Do you write in the same place or in different places?
IG: It’s pretty straight forward for me. I walk around with lots of ideas ping ponging around my head. One of them fights their way to the forefront. I write my first drafts very swift and decisively---then I spend many months revising. But I never stop working and I often juggle multiple projects. They begin to sort of influence and inform one another.

JL: Why was it important for you to be a part of the New Black Fest’s Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments? 
IG: The New Black Fest is an entity I have longer admired and wanted to be a part of. Much of my activism and response to the issues of the day is via my creative work. After first laying eyes on the images from Ferguson I immediately began writing a song, then another and within months I had a rap album called RHYMING WHILE BLACK.  This project gave me the opportunity to respond in a theatrical mode.

JL: Tell me about your play. What do you hope the audience walks away thinking about after experiencing it?
IG: My piece They Shootin’ or I aint neva scared: a reverberation in three parts is a monologue written in my own voice but for an actor to play. Which is to say, I wrote myself as character but don’t really intend to perform this piece myself. It’s about the paranoia one feels when considering America’s violent history toward the black body.

JL: What role does theater have in advocacy work?
IG: Theater sparks conversation. To me theater is about what happens before, during and after the show.

JL: What next for you as a writer? Where can we follow your work?
IG: So as I mentioned RHYMING WHILE BLACK was just released and is available via my Bandcamp page and CDbaby. I am doing small concerts around the country. I just opened AND IN THIS CORNER: CASSIUS CLAY, a play based on the young life of Muhammad Ali, at Louisville’s StageOne. THIS IS MODERN ART, a play co written with Kevin Coval, is based on the true exploits of an outlaw graffiti crew. That is going up at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in late February.  My latest “break beat play” THE REALNESS, a romantic comedy about class and hip hop, is receiving a reading in the Ruth Easton series at The Playwright Center in Minneapolis this March. And in April my black psycho drama play BLACKADEMICS, is being produced at Crowded Fire Theater in San Francisco. And finally in the late summer my jazz play BARS AND MEASURES will world premiere at B Street Theater in Sacramento.

Idris Goodwin is a playwright, Hip Hop artist, spoken word performer and essayist. He is the author of the award winning and widely produced play How We Got On (Playscripts, 2013) and the pushcart nominated essay collection These Are The Breaks (Write Bloody, 2011). He’s performed on HBO and Sesame Street. His two latest plays And in this corner....Cassius Clay (for StageOne Family Theater) and This is Modern Art (for Steppenwolf, co-written with poet Kevin Coval) will have world premiere productions in 2015. Idris teaches performance writing and Hip Hop aesthetics at Colorado College.

Event Details
HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments 
Written by Dennis Allen, Idris Goodwin, Glenn Gordon, ​Eric Holmes, Nathan James, and Nathan Yungerberg
Directed by Monet Noelle Marshall
Dramaturgy by Jules Odendahl-James and Jacqueline E. Lawton
Featuring  Malcolm Evans, Kenny Lampkin, Jordan Marshall, Justin Peoples, CJ Suitt and Marcus Zollicoffer
Stage Manager: JaMeeka Holloway
Produced by ArtsCenter Stage

Plan Your Visit
What: HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments
When: February 5-7 at 8:00 pm
Where: Common Ground Theatre, 4815B Hillsborough Rd, Durham
Cost: $8.00
RSVP: (919) 384-7817
Online Tickets: https://www.artful.ly/store/events/4916
Directions/Parking: http://www.cgtheatre.com/directions 
 
*HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments is produced in association with the New Black Fest. 

From February 5th to 7th, ArtsCenter Stage and Common Ground Theatre with the support of MOJOAA Perfoming Arts Company and in conjunction with the Ladies of the Triangle Theatre (LoTT) will present Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments, a collection of monologues by African-American playwrights featuring a wide range of perspectives on being a black man in America in the 21st century. Each performance will be followed by an interactive post show discussion that will culminate in the collection of ideas and individuals across all spectrums of identity, profession, and location to create a new work to be performed in late June at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro. Here's more information about the panelists and themes for each evening:

Thursday, February 5th

• Rodrigo Dorfman, Independent Film Producer/Photographer​

• ​Mosi Ifatunji, Assistant Professor at UNC-Chapel Hill,  Dept. of Sociology and Carolina Population Center
• Charles Phaneuf, Executive Director at Raleigh Little Theatre
• Rick Egens, Pastor of United Church of Chapel Hill
• Moderated by Jaqueline E. Lawton and Jules Odendahl-James

Friday, February 6th

• Monet Noelle Marshall, Director of Hands Up
  
• Malcolm Evans, Cast of Hands Up (Holes In My Identity)
  
• Kenny Lampkin, Cast of Hands Up (Superiority Fantasy) 
  
• Jordan Marshall, Cast of Hands Up (Abortion)
• Justin Peoples, Cast of Hands Up (How I Feel) 
• CJ Suitt, Cast of Hands Up (They Shooting! Or I Ain't Neva Scared...) 
• Marcus Zollicoffer, Cast of Hands Up (Walking Next to Mike Brown)
• Moderated by Jei Lynn Schulke
  

Saturday, February 7th 

• ​Margaret A Brunson, Senior Health Administrator for Duke University Health System and Faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government.
• Justin Cook,  Independent Documentary Photojournalist

• Lynden Harris, Founder and Director of Hidden Voices
  
• Bryan Marshall, Retired NYPD Detective
• Moderated by Devra Thomas
  

PLEASE NOTE:
Audience members are asked to bring an object/picture/story that represents one of the following per performance: 

• Thursday: COMMUNITY or SECURITY 
  
• Friday: CREATIVITY or INVISIBILITY 
  
• Saturday: RESPONSIBILITY or SUSTAINABILITY
  

You can follow us at #LoTTRiseUp on Twitter. 

Event Details
HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments 
Written by Dennis Allen, Idris Goodwin, Glenn Gordon, ​Eric Holmes, Nathan James, and Nathan Yungerberg
Directed by Monet Noelle Marshall
Dramaturgy by Jules Odendahl-James and Jacqueline E. Lawton
Featuring  Malcolm Evans, Kenny Lampkin, Jordan Marshall, Justin Peoples, CJ Suitt and Marcus Zollicoffer
Stage Manager: JaMeeka Holloway
Produced by ArtsCenter Stage

Plan Your Visit
What: HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments
When: February 5-7 at 8:00 pm
Where: Common Ground Theatre, 4815B Hillsborough Rd, Durham
Cost: $8.00
RSVP: (919) 384-7817
Online Tickets: https://www.artful.ly/store/events/4916
Directions/Parking: http://www.cgtheatre.com/directions 
 
*HANDS UP: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments is produced in association with the New Black Fest. 

As you all know, I moved to Chapel Hill in December to teach at UNC and dramaturg at PlayMakers Rep. It was a big move ... quite daunting. In advance, I researched the theatre community in my new home and was invited to be a part of the Ladies of the Triangle Theatre. I was inspired by the conversation around gender parity and racial equity that was taking place, and was impressed to learn of the commitment to new play development and community engagement. And within three weeks, I found myself working with six extraordinary women--Kathryn Hunter-Williams, Monet Marshall, Jules Odendahl-James, Ana Radulesu, Jeri Lynn Schulke, Devra Thomas--to produce Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments and create a performance-based, community response to critical questions regarding race, equity, and social justice. It all came together quickly and in true collaborative spirit. 

From February 5th to 7th at 8:00pm each night, ArtsCenter Stage and Common Ground Theatre with the support of MOJOAA Performing Arts Company and in conjunction with the Ladies of the Triangle Theatre (LoTT) will present Hands Up: 6 Playwrights, 6 Testaments, a collection of monologues by African-American playwrights featuring a wide range of perspectives on being a black man in America in the 21st century. Each performance will be followed by an interactive post show discussion that will culminate in the collection of ideas and individuals across all spectrums of identity, profession, and location to create a new work to be performed in late June at The ArtsCenter in Carrboro. You can follow us at #LoTTRiseUp on Twitter. 

Over the past couple of weeks, I connected with the amazing women to hear their thoughts on why this play was so important and the impact they hope it will have. 

In the final monologue of HandsUP, Dennis A. Allen II challenges the limits of endurance both figuratively and literally. Literally, keeps his arms in the "Don't shoot" posture for the entirety of his speech. Figuratively, he demands that we try to understand the everyday life experiences for men of color in America today. Even men with some measure of privilege -- artistically, intellectually, economically -- feel unsafe in their own country. Too often this fear is magnified by encounters with those whose job it is to protect and serve but whose training carries a mass incarceration mindset where certain bodies are seen as objects of threat above all other understanding. Even in the face of pain and exhaustion, Allen's speaker refuses to quit. He may not be sure of the finish line but he will not abandon the race toward something better than this. 

In that same way, I hope that the experience of HandsUP for the audience would be a similar test of our endurance. An opportunity to 'check-in' with ourselves about stories, bodies, and actions in our community. A chance to call out injustice without apology. And yet, there is another hope that beyond that naming, beyond the catharsis of telling stories of struggle, the HandsUP pieces can be a catalyst for us to work towards something better for our specific place and space here in the Triangle. To do that means we asks questions that go beyond these pieces. Whose voices don't we hear in these monologues that have similar experiences in our communities? What artistic forms should our responses take to state violence and institutionalized racism? How might the dialogue that emerges out of those forms influence specific social change in our communities? And how do we find a way to sustain these efforts beyond a few nights at the theater? Because while Ferguson might fade from memory, the conditions which made those events possible endure. And so must we.

This project is really important because it proves that the theater community is ready to respond. The fact that these artists are ready to start an inclusive conversation that does not necessarily promise answers, but does promise specific questions prooves to me just how important the medium of theater is. Not a lot of people outside this community know how or are ready to respond...but it is important that someone starts talking...and I think this project hands the microphone over to a person who is not only ready to share a story but it also hands the opportunity to a community who is ready to talk about its experience.