The South Puget Sound Community College (SPSCC) Theatre Collective presents Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, a Pulitzer Prize, Olivier Award, and Tony Award-winning play that explores race, class, property ownership, and gentrification in America. Performances will take place from November 13 to 22 at the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts Main Stage.
Inspired by the house at the center of Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park imagines its history across two generations. In 1959, a home in a predominantly white neighborhood is sold to the Younger family, an African American family. Fifty years later, after the neighborhood has become a predominantly African American community, the same house is sold to a white couple. Through sharp dialogue and cutting humor, Norris examines the assumptions, tensions, and middle-class hypocrisies surrounding race, property, and changing neighborhoods.
The cast includes Teresita Brimms, SPSCC graduate Johanna Chhay, Heather Christopher, Kalen McCrea, Jalen Penn, Jerry Romasco, Jed Slaughter, and current SPSCC student Teddy Spector. SPSCC graduate Raessa Patterson serves as Associate Director and Stage Manager.
The production’s prop, costume, and construction crew is composed entirely of current SPSCC students: Connor Adams, Kaelin Green, Galyliah Hedgers, Skylar Hirsch, Finn Johnston, Austin Robins, Teddy Spector, Phoenix Watts, and Anna-Lisa Wright.
“Norris’ Pulitzer play stages difficult conversations around race, class, and property,” said Dr. Lauren Love, SPSCC Drama Professor and Director of Clybourne Park. “The characters are beautifully drawn, and Norris has an excellent ear for dialogue and an acute understanding of human foibles and the social structures that shape them. This ensemble is diving deeply and playfully into a satire filled with serious situations and questions. Norris makes room for us to reflect on our own attitudes and assumptions about ourselves and one another through laughter. By ‘cracking us up,’ he cracks open persistent middle-class mores that need reexamination and change.”
Admission is a suggested $15 donation at the door. SPSCC students, staff, and faculty are free. More information, including performance dates and times, is available on the college’s Arts & Entertainment Calendar.
