Playwrights Horizons has released the first production photographs of the ripple, the wave that carried me home, Christina Anderson's play about a daughter, her activist parents and a fight over a public swimming pool. It opens officially on November 18.
The photographs are by Marc J. Franklin. Tiffany Nichole Greene directs a company of four: Alana Raquel Bowers as Janice, Crystal Lucas-Perry as Helen, Biko Eisen-Martin as Edwin and Marinda Anderson, who doubles as Gayle and the Young Chipper Ambitious Black Woman.
The play sets two periods of Janice's life side by side. In 1960s Kansas her parents are leading the push to open the town's public pools to Black swimmers, a campaign that takes up most of the room in her childhood. Thirty years later she is asked to speak at a ceremony honoring her father, and has to decide what she owes a history she has kept at arm's length ever since.
Anderson, a Tony nominee for Best Book of a Musical whose plays include How to Catch Creation and Good Goods, has seen this one produced at regional houses including Yale Repertory Theatre; Playwrights Horizons is giving it its New York premiere. Greene, an Obie winner for directing Covenant at Roundabout, is working with Lawrence E. Moten III (scenic design), Rodrigo Muñoz (costumes), Lap Chi Chu (lighting), Christopher Darbassie (sound) and Earon Chew Nealey (wigs and hair).
Performances began on October 21 and the run is scheduled to end on November 29. Book tickets for the ripple, the wave that carried me home.
