by Tim Crawford
An Our Stage / Our Voices play-in-progress

You are invited to be a part of an exciting, evolving theatre experience where your reactions and comments will help shape this play-in-progress by Our Stage / Our Voices Artist-in-Residence Tim Crawford. Join us for an evening of theatre that will begin with a selection of short plays written by participants in Tim’s recently completed Writing for the Stage Workshop, then experience a staged reading of Tim’s 1908 play-in-progress. The evening will culminate in a talkback session with the audience.

About the play:

In Outraged: Terror in Springfield 1908, we meet Bonaparte Baker, ten years after he survived a horrific attack on the Black community in Wilmington, N. C., in the previous century. On his way West, he steps off the train in Springfield, where he was born. Renowned as the hometown of Abraham Lincoln, Baker’s estranged brother-in-law tells him Springfield’s Black community feels protected, by Lincoln’s legacy, from the pogroms Black people are plagued with throughout the southern United States. In August 1908, Springfield is a place where terror and tragedy loom.

Thank you for supporting Our Stage / Our Voices, a program of the UIS Performing Arts Center in which the voices of historically underrepresented communities in the performing arts are amplified, with a goal of achieving diversity and inclusion.