Thanks to a collaborative effort between 20 professional playwrights and students at the University of Kansas, the KU Department of Theatre & Dance this week will hold a three-performance run of its season finale, “Changemakers.”
The play is based on stories of community leaders, activists and frontline workers and reflecting social justice movements, the department said. It consists of 20 short scenes and songs.
KU faculty members Markus Potter and Darci Jens Fulcher are directing the show, and they said in a statement they hope “Changemakers” will “examine the tragic, humorous, poignant, inspiring stories about isolation, human connection, and our question for change; to brainstorm, reinvent, and imagine what is possible in the days and years ahead.”
Several professional playwrights contributed to “Changemakers” with KU students Jeremiah Coleman, Stella Rose Garibaldi, India MacDonald and Chloé Ryan. They are Paris Crayton III, Sherri Eldin, Rodney Hicks, Stephen Kaplan, Aimé Donna Kelly, Leonard Madrid, Ryan McCall, David Don Miller, Lewis J. Morrow, Lori Elizabeth Parquet, Bill Russell, Tammy Ryan, Andrew Saito, SEVAN, Nandita Shenoy, Vera Starbard, James Still, chandra thomas, Sheri Wilner, and Michael Wysong.
All three performances can be streamed live on KU Theatre’s YouTube, though performance videos will only be available while the show is ongoing. The first two performances are slated for 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Friday. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were a limited number of in-person tickets available for the show’s final performance, a matinee at 2:30 p.m. Sunday, May 2.
Anyone interested in the limited in-person tickets to the Sunday afternoon showing can visit kutheatre.com/changemakers for reservations and to review the COVID-19 audience protocols. Read more about the show here and see the full cast and crew here.
