Double Bill: Dark Red by: Willow Cioppa & Cry Baby by: Kalale Dalton-Lutale

For the first time ever, Black Theatre Workshop & Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal will be presenting 2 one-act plays in a special Double Bill presentation at the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels). BTW places the spotlight on two of our Artist Mentorship Program playwright alumni’s recent work.

About Dark Red by Willow Cioppa

Calliope is a young woman on the cusp of a complete meltdown. Alone in her apartment, she writes a single letter addressing every man she’s ever fucked, blurring them all together to create one beast, representative of all her trauma. Addressing this man in a vulgar, crass, and brutally honest text, Calliope unravels her experiences of heartache and abuse, searching for closure in songs, books, memories, and liquor. Dark Red is a viscous, textural exploration of what it means to lick our own wounds and heal ourselves, moving past our brokenness and reclaiming our pain in order to move forward.

About Cry Baby by Kalale Dalton-Lutale.

So you have these memories, right? And they’re all sort of hanging above your head like a tangled mobile. Pieces of songs that remind you of your dad in college, the smell of chlorine, your mother’s hand writing, a card you made for your sister.

In Kalale Dalton-Lutale’s Cry baby we watch as a young woman unravels. Relying on her personal archive as source material, Dalton-Lutale’s (2016) work offers the audience a non-linear piece of theatre. By resurrecting the archive, she unveils the framework of love that has shaped her into the person she is today. Prompted by falling in love for the first time, the playwright reflects on her own Blackness, family, and womanhood. Cry baby asks us “how can we be whole when a part of us is missing?”