Playwright Lisa B Thompson Explores the Life of the Single Black Female

Single Black Female, a play that explores the interior lives of contemporary African American women, will run at The Duke on 42nd Street through June 29th. Hilarious, authentic, poignant, and glorious: this new production speaks with clear precision and sometimes raunchy humor about the world middle class Black women occupy. Actresses Soara-Joye Ross and Riddick Marie explore all the wonder and sadness, the triumph and the compromise, the best and the worst in the life of the Single Black Female. This play gives voice to the sister with a “New York mind, L.A. face, Oakland booty, Vineyard trust fund,? a beautiful Black woman with two degrees; a career; and manners, who, with all that going on, wonders why Tiger Woods ?married the nanny.?

Playwright and SUNY Albany English professor Lisa B. Thompson answered a few questions about her brilliant new work and current trends in Black Theatre. Get tickets online and support this Colman Domingo directed work that the New York Times called ?socially significant and very entertaining.?

1) This play is so honest and fresh in its portrayal of the lives of
middle class single Black women. Where did the idea for the play come
from?

LBT) Thank you for the compliment. While I was doctoral student in Modern
Thought & Literature at Stanford University I was researching contemporary
representations of black middle class sexuality in African American
literature and performance. The play became the place to write about all
the issues and ideas that were not quite academic. Writing ?Single Black
Female? also allowed me to create the kind of black women characters that
I longed to find during my research —women who were irreverent, and
audacious yet vulnerable and a tad melancholy.

2) Comedy is the brutal art, and Single Black Female is hilarious. What
serious issues were you thinking through as you crafted this play? What
does the accuracy of your production say about the state of middle class
African American women?

LBT) The play is saying it is our time to be heard in our own voices. The
treatment of and curiosity toward Michelle Obama certainly reveals that
mainstream society considers middle class black women an anomaly.
Hopefully once she becomes first lady that will change!

The main thing that stayed with me as I wrote this play remains the
central question that resonates at the play?s conclusion—why are these
amazing women alone? Although imperfect, they have so much to offer, but
often find themselves with no one. The statistics quoted in the play are
real. Many more black women find themselves without partners for
significant portions of their lives and it?s a hard truth. The play tries
to get at some of the reasons in a humorous way.

3) Were any scenes in the play personal? How much of this story comes from
your life or the lives of women you know?

LBT) Although none of the scenes happened to me, they are all personal (I find
it interesting that so many reviewers assume it is autobiographical). I
did make one of the characters (SBF 1) an English professor like myself
because it was easier to ground her in a world I knew about. Many of the
scenes are drawn from my own interior life and imagination. Historic
episodes such as the Tuskegee experiment or slavery are things that dwell
just below the surface in the African American psyche and I wanted to
point out how thoughts about such ugly realities puncture or everyday
lives even for the most privileged people. While I was in town for the
play?s opening I had an interesting moment trying to get a cab! I?m sure
that will inspire a scene in my next play, ?Underground,? which examines
slavery?s lingering impact on blacks in the 21st century.

4) If the women in the production represent the subconscious of today’s
middle class Black woman, why two distinct characters with two distinct
roles and issues? What does each female character represent?

LBT) SBF 1 & SBF 2 represent tight knit girlfriends who know each other well,
but whose lives and desires are different. SBF 1 feels ambivalent about
marriage and the traditions surrounding it, while SBF 2 wants it all
(marriage, career, kids, minivan). I wanted to showcase a friendship that
housed those contradictions—I think women are often drawn to other women
who we admire and who help us see the things we cannot see ourselves. The
play shows how much the voices of our friends reside in our subconscious.
Throughout the day I often channel my friends. If I can?t get a hold of my
girls for advice, I find myself answering a question with their voices in
my head. I?ll ask, now what would V say? What would S tell me? There?s
my answer. It?s sometimes better than text messaging!

5)? Women play men in your work. Why the choice not to write for and cast
male actors? What aspect of having two actresses play the male roles
appealed to you?

LBT) First of all, I love the pace and energy of a two-hander. With Riddick
Marie and Soara-Joye Ross playing all those characters (white, black,
male, female, young, old, gay, straight) it breaks down so many barriers.
They are both amazing actors. Their performances allows audiences to see
that we are all so different and yet so much alike. The ability of this
show to transcend barriers is clear to me when elderly white gay men tell
me that they identify with the show. I believe that in the specific we
truly find the universal.

6) Some audience members might think of the popular Sex and the City
series because of the play’s vision of sophisticated urban life, but the
honest interiority of Single Black Female made me think about The Vagina
Monologues and For Colored Girls. I’m thinking of your gynecologist scene
especially, as it asks the audience to contemplate the Black female body.
Do you think playwrights like Eve Ensler and Ntozake Shange paved the way
for you to write Single Black Female?

LBT) Let me say that Ntozake Shange?s ?For Colored Girls,? which is referenced
in the play, is a major influence on the show and her work allows for
Ensler and others to re-imagine what audiences and producers consider
appropriate and bankable material. Shange (as well as George Wolfe and
Anna Deavere Smith) are major influences on me as a dramatist. I took a
class with Shange when I was an undergraduate at UCLA and on the first day
she had us do free-writing exercise. I wrote my first monologue in that
class as well as my first play. Her influence goes back even further on
my work—her landmark choreopoem was presented in the SF Bay Area when I
was in junior high school and the radio ads captivated my imagination. My
mother forbade me from attending the show so I found a copy of the play
and performed it myself in my bedroom. I can?t wait to finally see the
revival of ?For Colored Girls? on Broadway this fall directed by Shirley
Jo Finney.

7) Do you feel your work belongs in the tradition of Black Theatre,
Women’s Theatre, or American Theatre? How do these categories impact you
and your work?

LBT) While I see my work as being a part of all three traditions, I feel
especially honored for it to be considered within the tradition of African
American theatre and performance. My role model will always be sweet
Lorraine Hansberry.

8) Colman Domingo, who currently appears in the Tony Award winning Passing
Strange, directed Single Black Female. There seems to be a fresh new wave
of quality theatre by and about people of color. What trends do you see in
theatre today?

LBT) I am excited about the browning of the Great White Way! ?Passing Strange?
is a love letter to middle class black folks who grew up trying to fit
into everyone else?s notion of authentic blackness. And let me state for
the record that Colman Domingo has replaced James Brown as the hardest
working man in show business. The brilliance, honesty and exuberance he
brings to his role in ?Passing Strange? he also brought to directing
?Single Black Female.? I am pleased to see Broadway making room for
artists such as Colman, Stew, Eisa Davis, Anika Noni Rose, and the talent
behind ?In the Heights? who are charting a new direction in theater that
allows for diverse and complex representations of American life. August
Wilson left big shoes that will never be filled, but there are many of us
eager to add new wings to the house he built.

9) Describe the process of getting your work from page to stage.

LBT) I must say that it has not difficult. The play keeps being ?discovered? by
interested producers (all who have been women by the way). Working with
Colman since the first reading of ?Single Black Female? made it easy for
me to revise the script as well. Colman and I have a short hand in working
with each other—we finish each other?s sentences and thoughts. Our
instincts and temperaments compliment each other. Each producer has been
pleased with us as a team and I?m eager to see him direct my next project.

10) Talk about the New Professional Theatre. What exactly does this
organization do and how did you come to work with them to produce Single
Black Female?

LBT) New Professional Theatre?s mission is to empower, advance, and sustain the
work of minority theatre artists and to develop new, diverse audiences.
The founder and artistic director Sheila Kay Davis is a visionary who
tirelessly works to support the work of African American writers. Their
annual writer?s festival features some of the most exciting up and coming
playwrights. She understands that without cultivating writers black
theater cannot survive. By chance a NPT board members saw the 2004 Los
Angeles production of ?Single Black Female? (which was nominated for a ?LA
Weekly? Theater award) and she contacted me about mounting the show. I was
reluctant only because I was working on a tenure clock and a baby clock.
Sheila Kay Davis?s support allowed me to have the time to finish my book
and birth my son. NPT first produced ?Single Black Female? in June 2006
when my son was only 6 months old. It helped that Sheila Kay Davis is also
a mother, so she is very understanding of my limitations. When the ?New
York Times? gave us a glowing review I knew our partnership was on its
way.

11) Please add anything else you’d like to folk to know about your play
that I neglected to ask.

LBT) My book, ?Beyond the Black Lady: Sexuality and the New African American
Middle Class? will be published by the University of Illinois Press in
spring 2009. I spend sometime in the book discussing the play and how it
challenges perceptions of middle class black women. It?s nice that the
two projects will both be out in the public sphere within a year of each
other since they lived inside my head for so long as companion pieces.

And yes, please get out and see the show before it closes on Sunday, June
29th!