Metropolitan Playhouse
Virtual Playhouse
Presents
A Screened Reading
of

COMPROMISE
Written by WILLIS RICHARDSON

Featuring
ANTHONY T. GOSS, LINDA KURILOFF, LILY SANTIAGO,
AL-NISA PETTY, & GEORGE SHEFFEY

Directed by TIMOTHY JOHNSON

www.metropolitanplayhouse.org/virtualplayhouse

June 13, 2020, 8 p.m.

Jane has compromised so many times with her white neighbor, Ben. She is the strength and soul of her family. Her husband is dead, her oldest son is dead, but she has swallowed her resentment in order to keep her children safe and provide a future for them. A future that will include an education and a better life.

Ben drops by for coffee every day, rubbing those old wounds just by his presence. Her remaining son, Alec, carries his anger openly. He has no use for Ben and can’t understand his mother’s ability to forgive. As the story unfolds its petals, we see the complicated interweaving of these two families, as Ben once again wants a compromise. He goes one step too far, even for Jane. And it may be the last step he ever takes. Jane’s days of compromise have ended.

Written in 1925 and set in the Maryland countryside, the play echoes the origins of playwright WILLIS RICHARDSON, the first African American to have a drama produced on Broadway. Encouraged by W.E.B. DuBois and the power of the Harlem Renaissance, he wrote prolifically and received a multitude of awards. Yet today his name is forgotten by most. COMPROMISE could have been written yesterday. Some things haven’t changed.

-Karen D’Onofrio-