Steppenwolf NOW Concludes First Virtual Season with
Where We Stand
A Filmed Play
By Donnetta Lavinia Grays
Directed by Tamilla Woodard
Featuring Donnetta Lavinia Grays
Streaming June 16 – August 31, 2021
A Remarkable Storytelling Tour-de-Force about Community and Accountability
Donnetta Lavinia Grays in Where We Stand. Photo by Joan Marcus, courtesy of WP Theater.
What does community mean? And what do we owe to one another? Steppenwolf NOW proudly presents the final offering in its inaugural virtual season, Where We Stand, a bold feat of storytelling about community and accountability written, performed and composed by Donnetta Lavinia Grays. Directed by Tamilla Woodard, this 70-minute filmed play begins streaming June 16, 2021.
You can access the work with the purchase of a Steppenwolf NOW membership, which includes six dynamic productions all available to stream through August 31, 2021. Tickets for all six plays is only $75 at steppenwolf.org/now. (Discounts available for essential workers, artists, students and teachers.)
Hailed as a “charismatic feat” (New York Magazine) with “enchanting lyrics and flourishes of humor” (The New York Times), Where We Stand was originally commissioned for the Public Theatre’s Mobile Unit and later received its world premiere Off Broadway at WP Theater in 2020 to critical acclaim. This filmed play captures a performance originally presented at Baltimore Center Stage co-produced with WP Theater.
When a man who has been shunned by his town makes a deal on behalf of it with a mysterious stranger, he must stand before his community to ask for forgiveness in the hopes that they might answer these enduring questions as they determine his fate. Through poetic verse and music, Where We Stand challenges our capacity to forgive and our ideas of mercy and who might deserve it.
Following the virtual production of Where We Stand, viewers are invited to take a stance and cast their vote to either punish this man for the crimes he has committed by sending him back to the outskirts of town and, in exchange, make our wealth a reality; or absolve this man of his crimes and keep him here among us, knowing that we will be left with this destruction and must rebuild on our own from nothing.
“It’s town hall, it’s theater, it’s civic dialogue all in one place. We’re going to get to grapple with a story and a decision together. There’s no right and there’s no wrong. There’s only the value of having the conversation,” shares director Tamilla Woodard.
The creative team includes Claire DeLiso (Scenic Design); Ntokozo Fuzunina Kunene (Costume Design); Deane Lyons (Film Producer); David Lee Roberts, Jr. (Editor); Norman Anthony Small (Stage Manager); Leelai Demoz and Kenya Hall (Artistic Producers) and Leelai Demoz (Archival Producer).