Playwright Andrea Fulton's play "One Drop" will be performed as a fundraiser for John Wesley Methodist Church in Bedford-Stuyvesant on April 19, and April 20.
Written by Fulton and directed by Michael Green, "One Drop" is about bi-racial Charley Cade, whose story set in the late 1800's Louisiana is told by a multicultural cast with original music. His journey is one where triumph reigns despite power, love, faith and fear colliding all because of the color of his skin.
Born out of wedlock to a white woman and a Black man in 1876, the play's central character is exiled from his biological mother's plantation home before he was even born. Raised by an adoptive Black mother, adolescent Charley inherits the task of "passing" for white because of his light skin. Instead of "passing" to gain stature in a white-dominated society, Charley passes to "make a point" to friends, with whom he jokes about how easily he can appear as white.
Beneath the jokes, however, lies a crucial choice-- to whom is Charley loyal? His adoptive mother, LaTessa, who withheld knowledge of Charley's biological past for his life's sake, and who represents to him the Black community that nurtured him? Or to his white peers, to whom "one drop" of nonwhite blood is enough to justify murdering him for the sake of preserving the legacy of slavery-era racism?
The fundraiser performances take place at the banquet hall of the church, 260 Quincy Street, on Friday, April 19 from 7 pm until 10 pm and Saturday, April 20, from 4 pm until 7 pm. Tickets are $80.
