IU Theatre opens its spring 2021 season with Amplified: A Series of Plays by Black Authors featuring readings of Adored You by Rachel Lynett and Stick Fly by Lydia R. Diamond.
The Amplified series is dedicated to plays written by Black writers and seeks to magnify their voices, experiences, and stories. Through these stories, we hope to challenge inherited and systemic narratives of the historical western theatrical canon ensuring that these vital voices reach our audiences and our communities. This spring, we continue the series with readings of these two stirring works.
Rachel Lynett’s Adored You starts the spring series on February 5. In Lynett’s play, Lila and Alex meet in a coffee shop and over the next three years (in a single day), they try to form a life together, with all the ups and downs that come with being in love. Lynett also directs the Adored You readings.
In Stick Fly, the affluent, African-American LeVay family is gathering at their Martha’s Vineyard home for the weekend and brothers Kent and Flip have each brought their respective partners home to meet the parents for the first time. Kent’s fiancée, Taylor, an academic whose absent father was a prominent author, struggles to fit into the LeVay’s upper-crust lifestyle. Kimber, on the other hand, is a self-described WASP who works with inner-city school children, fits in more easily with the family. Joining these two couples are the demanding LeVay patriarch, Joe, and Cheryl, the daughter of the family’s longtime housekeeper. As the two newcomers butt heads over issues of race and privilege, longstanding family tensions bubble under the surface and reach a boiling point when secrets are revealed. Professor Leraldo Anzaldua directs Stick Fly.
The College of Arts