Arts
I'm excited to share a series of conversations with actresses who starred in Jocelyn Bioh's play, School Girls: Or the African Mean Girls Play. These interviews were recorded with students at the Charles E. Smith Jewish Day School in Maryland. This fall, I developed a program for Jewish high schools, which are majority white spaces, to explore plays by Black playwrights, to read and watch those plays, discuss the themes, expand the art they love, and perhaps most importantly, to interview Black actors and directors who have made those plays come alive in performance. This interview is with Joanna Jones who played Ericka at the MCC production of School Girls in New York. Joanna talked to us about her similarities to Ericka, particularly the experience of being the new girl in school. The depiction of Ericka as a light-skinned young woman who gains social capital at her new boarding school in Ghana draws on themes of colorism, which Joanna calls "a prejudice within a prejudice". Joanna also answered a few questions about Hamilton, in which she played the dual role of Peggy Schuyler and Maria Reynolds on Broadway. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.