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What to Send Up When It Goes Down
As lines between characters and actors - as well as observers and observed - blur, a dizzying series of vignettes builds to a climactic moment in which performance and reality collide, highlighting the absurdity of anti-Blackness in our society. Through facilitation and dialogue we must decide how to cope, resist, and move forward.
- GenresPlays
76 pages, Paperback
Published May 1, 2019
29 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
December 28, 2021
What to Send Up When It Goes Down - Aleshea Harris (Samuel French, 2019) 29 June 2021
4M, 4F
3 Movements; various vignettes within each movement.
A ritual affirmation for black people. A moment of truth that one is not nuts for seeing racism in the world. A chance to pledge to actively work to make the world a better place. This play actively says that it is written for black people; to create a safe place for black audience and performers. This is not racist or segregationist. Author and performers welcome and appreciate non-black audience members. However, this piece is not designed to make them comfortable or to appease their sensibilities.
What to Send Up takes cues from the African diaspora, the history of American race relations, and Civil Rights Era to modern day anger and activism.
Today (29 June 2021) I was involved in a Zoom meeting with the author and the director of the NYC premier. They discussed a number of the influences on the play and the production. It was an interesting discussion, but not the focus of this writing.
While I am not the target audience for this piece, I recognize how powerful the piece is. It is certainly worthy of production, and a strong piece to produce in today's race-conscious America.
One scene that keeps coming back into mind is a scene where two characters are meeting a white co-worker who said "I don't see skin color." This statement is worthy of mockery. Of course he sees skin color; everyone does (unless they are actually blind). I do. I try hard to not let skin color influence my decisions, but I see it. It feels more racist to deny seeing an obvious physical trait than to acknowledge it and move on. No one ever tried to convince Andre the Giant that they didn't see his height and girth. It would have been insulting to do so.
Overall, this would be an interesting show to work on, incorporating various folk and indigenous performance sensibilities into the production, coupled with the design and layout of the lobby display and/or projected media of the black murdered men and women mentioned in the play. It would be a wonderfully powerful piece, but probably not a piece that I will have the opportunity to work on.
4M, 4F
3 Movements; various vignettes within each movement.
A ritual affirmation for black people. A moment of truth that one is not nuts for seeing racism in the world. A chance to pledge to actively work to make the world a better place. This play actively says that it is written for black people; to create a safe place for black audience and performers. This is not racist or segregationist. Author and performers welcome and appreciate non-black audience members. However, this piece is not designed to make them comfortable or to appease their sensibilities.
What to Send Up takes cues from the African diaspora, the history of American race relations, and Civil Rights Era to modern day anger and activism.
Today (29 June 2021) I was involved in a Zoom meeting with the author and the director of the NYC premier. They discussed a number of the influences on the play and the production. It was an interesting discussion, but not the focus of this writing.
While I am not the target audience for this piece, I recognize how powerful the piece is. It is certainly worthy of production, and a strong piece to produce in today's race-conscious America.
One scene that keeps coming back into mind is a scene where two characters are meeting a white co-worker who said "I don't see skin color." This statement is worthy of mockery. Of course he sees skin color; everyone does (unless they are actually blind). I do. I try hard to not let skin color influence my decisions, but I see it. It feels more racist to deny seeing an obvious physical trait than to acknowledge it and move on. No one ever tried to convince Andre the Giant that they didn't see his height and girth. It would have been insulting to do so.
Overall, this would be an interesting show to work on, incorporating various folk and indigenous performance sensibilities into the production, coupled with the design and layout of the lobby display and/or projected media of the black murdered men and women mentioned in the play. It would be a wonderfully powerful piece, but probably not a piece that I will have the opportunity to work on.
January 22, 2022
mandatory reading.
July 12, 2022
Read for grad school. Absolutely adore the structure of this play and the way it engages non-Black audiences while still centering Black audience members.
July 15, 2024
never before has dialogue successively outdone itself, pushed itself to unexplored corners and subconscious realms this beautifully, in a single play. i’m amazed by the rawness of this language and how it works to expand our understanding of theatre. this is a poignant and urgent response to anti-Black violence in this country.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews