The Rings of the City: On Class, Race, and the Urban American Landscape
Issue-rich plays like Clybourne Park —which deals with such fraught subjects as gentrification, race, and the flimsiness of liberal sentiment—tend to throw the dramaturgy and publications departments at A.C.T. into a gleeful frenzy of research, fact-finding, and heated debate. For the past two months our offices have been littered with maps of Chicago (where Clybourne Park is set), statistics about the racial makeup of the Bay Area, photos of old Chicago bungalows and high-rise housing projects, and YouTube videos showcasing the race-based humor of Dave Chappelle, Dick Gregory, and Richard Pryor (the play is a comedy, after all). To bring some of that research and debate to our audience, A.C.T. has arranged a new discussion series, Experts Talk Back , during the Clybourne Park run. Five experts in various aspects of urban development will participate in postperformance in-theater conversations about some of the provocative issues raised by the play. This week, A.C.T. Publications...