Description

“Finding Holy Ground: Performing Visions of Race and Justice in America” is a collaboration between Wake Forest University School of Divinity, the University’s Wake the Arts Initiative, and the North Carolina Black Repertory Company. The project will commission and produce two original plays to be presented at the 2024 National Black Theater Festival. Each play will address a theme at the intersection of race and religion, while inducing community conversation and engagement in the city and beyond. Possible themes include: the racialization of religion as evidenced by Islamophobia and Christian white nationalism; the history of civil rights protest and intergenerational struggles from the Freedom Riders to Black Lives Matter; and the transnational interlace between traditional West African spirituality and conservative evangelical Christianity, as witnessed through a character’s LGBTQ identity. Student interns from Wake Forest University’s theatre program and divinity school will be closely involved in the project’s work, and the plays will be performed in the historic Wait Chapel on the Wake Forest campus.