From Les

In the spring of 2020, my daughter started posting on Facebook her feelings about social justice and the unrest that was sweeping the country. Her postings were thought-provoking, insightful and filled with passion. As I read her writings I was taken by the depth of emotions of what she was saying. Her writings made me start thinking about what I could personally do besides marching and donating money with regards to the issues of race and social justice in the country. (A note of clarification … I am white male and have been married to an African American woman for over 40 years.)

As a playwright and director, I have used my skills to create productions with a social context for the audience I was serving. In the past I have written and produced plays in Los Angeles that had at their core questions that dealt with inter-racial relationships.  With the pandemic roaring through the country, and the country in lockdown, I was thinking maybe I could write something and produce it via zoom that dealt with the issues of race and social justice. I’d already written about the virus in my short play, “The Virus and God”, that had been chosen by the Dramatist Guild for a zoom production in May of 2020. That experience made me think I could write something longer that illustrated what I was feeling about the turbulent time of 2020. That’s when I decided to write a story that I entitled, “Do Something”.  

I worked on the story for a few weeks and when I finished I felt I had come up with something interesting and timely. It was then I called Peppur Chambers, an African American playwright and director who I had worked with for over a decade, and asked her to take a look at what I’d written and see if she would be interested in working with me turning the story into a script.

I felt that as a white male I could write the story but to write the script it was important to have a black woman work on it with me to bring the characters to life, and Peppur was my logical choice. She read my story and after we talked about it she agreed to write the script with me.

It took three months to get a script we both felt was ready for a reading. It was at that point I decided I would not direct the production. Why? Because of the nature of the script, I felt the production needed to be directed by a woman.  I offered it to Peppur, whose past work I had greatly admired, and who I knew had similar sensibilities towards the project. I knew she could direct it with a sure hand. She agreed and we immediately began casting for the reading.