Last weekend, I saw four plays written by women. The first three were by living playwrights (
Grace McLean's musical In the Green,
Lauren Gunderson's Silent Sky, and
Keiko Green's world premiere Hells Canyon), and the fourth was by Alice Childress, one of the most prolific Black female playwrights of the 20th Century, who had her Broadway play debut just a few years ago -
Trouble in Mind (
which the Guthrie produced a few years earlier). Her plays seem to be having a resurgence in recent years, and it's about time. In 2017 Penumbra Theatre Company produced the gorgeous and devastating
Wedding Band, and now they're presenting
Wine in the Wilderness, about an artist painting Black women in 1960s Harlem. It's a thoughtful and thought-provoking exploration of the intersection of race and gender, as always beautifully done by Penumbra.
