Facing Our Truth

To mark the first anniversary of George Zimmerman’s acquittal in the shooting death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin, Center Theatre Group is presenting a reading of Facing Our Truth: Ten Minute Plays on Trayvon, Race and Privilege at the Kirk Douglas Theatre.

The reading will be followed by a one–hour conversation guided by the teenage facilitators of the previous day’s Facing Our Truth: Youth Summit. They will share what the 17- and 18-year-old delegates from all over Los Angeles discussed around the topics of race, youth violence, and activism through art.

The six plays comprising Facing Our Truth were commissioned by New Black Fest, a New York-based theatre festival dedicated to “stretching, interrogating and uplifting the Black aesthetic.”

The playwrights—a diverse group including Dominique Morisseau (Detroit ’67), Mona Mansour (The Way West), Marcus Gardley (The House That Will Not Stand), Winter Miller (In Darfur) with Tala Manassah, A. Rey Pamatmat (Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them) and Dan O’Brien (The Body of an American) with Grammy Award-winning composer Quetzal Flores—were chosen for the range of perspectives they bring to this difficult topic. Center Theatre Group is one several theatres nationwide joining to present Facing Our Truth—others include Woolly Mammoth Theatre in Washington, D.C., Alliance Theater in Atlanta, and Goodman Theatre in Chicago.