Jackie Sibblies Drury is a first-generation American playwright. She grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey, raised by her Jamaican immigrant mother and grandmother. Her mother enrolled her at a private school in New Jersey where she witnessed the persistence of segregation even in a harmonious community. As a young child, Drury often traveled to New York with her mother to see plays and musicals which led to her studying literature at Yale University and receiving her MFA in playwriting from Brown University. She is the recipient of the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting.
Drury works include a play that depicts a zombie apocalypse, Social Creatures (2013), and Fairview (2018) for which she received the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a “hard-hitting drama that examines race in a highly conceptual, layered structure, ultimately bringing audiences into the actors’ community to face deep-seated prejudices.” Fairview also earned her the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize which has a cash prize award of $25,000. We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, From the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1884-1915 has been called “her breakout work” by The New York Times.
Drury describes her approach to writing as akin to throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. “It’s lots and lots of pages of notes, and short exchanges of text and some stage directions and some impressionistic gathering of things”. A key part of the process is bringing 40 to 60 minutes worth of material to a workshop and hearing the actors read the words and listen to their feedback.
You may find yourself laughing when you’re watching one of Drury’s works and wonder am I supposed to, or allowed to. “It’s my favorite kind of laughter,” she says with delight. “The kind that feels like, UGH!, you’re not supposed to be doing it, or I can’t believe I’m laughing at this, or I hope that no one hears me laughing at this.”
“I like to go to plays to feel stuff, and that is a way to deeply feel something.”
See We Are Proud to Present... October 27 – 31 at CCBC Catonsville, Center for the Arts, Theatre.
Performance Dates: October 27 at 11:10 a.m., October 28, 29 at 7 p.m., October 30 at 3 p.m. (ASL Interpreted), and October 31 at 10 a.m.
General admission $10, Seniors, Students, CCBC Faculty/Staff/Alumni $5, FREE for CCBC Students with current ID
Purchase tickets online at www.ccbctickets or call the Box Office at 443-840-ARTS.
Please note, We Are Proud to Present … deals with mature themes, and contains both offensive language and representations of racial bias, including threats of violence. This content is necessary to the author’s intentions, but may be upsetting for some viewers.
CCBC requires masks be worn indoors at all times inside any arts venue regardless of vaccination status. For the most up-to-date information visit CCBCMD.EDU/TOGETHER.
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