Megan E. Bloom
A&E Editor
Senior theatre major Zipporah Brown will be performing her one woman showcase, “Let Our Voices be Heard”. This show is composed of a series of monologues from a variety of plays and poems by Maya Angelou that Brown compiled. Each soliloquy is focused around the minority experience of blacks, latinos, Asians, Native Americans and Muslims in America. The topic of racial identity in America has been a hot topic on Messiah’s campus especially since last week’s Humanities Symposium, which focused on race.
One of her goals with this show is for the audience to learn about people who are different from them. “A lot of times if you’re not involved in the struggle directly you might think that [minority groups] are overreacting but when you come see the show you’ll actually learn about the experiences of these minorities,” said Brown.
Each character she portrays has a different experience, some humorous while others incredibly serious. “I wanted to pick pieces that were representative of the experience of the different minorities,” she said.
To concede with the overarching theme of race and the minority experience, the audience will see a variety of smaller themes throughout the monologues such as overcoming stereotypes. The Asian American character in the show confronts the cliché that all Asians excel in math and that they all just immigrated to the United States. Meanwhile, the female Muslim character cries out asking why she can’t practice her religion freely through wearing a headscarf.
Brown is able to connect directly to the black woman who is expressing the pain that she is feeling about police brutality toward the African American community. The soliloquy comes from Anna Deavere Smith’s play “Twilight” which is about the violence in LA towards Rodney King in 1992.
“I was able to connect with this because of all the recent cases of police brutality that have happened recently, Michael Brown, Aiyana Stanley Jones, Eric Garner. I feel like these cases keep piling and piling up and that’s why I could connect with that monologue immediately,” she said.
“Let Our Voices Be Heard” originally was set to run March 5-7 at 8 p.m. However, due to weather conditions, tonight’s show has been postponed to a future time to be announced. All showings will be at Poorman Blackbox Theatre in Climenhaga Hall. Tickets are $5.
