This play came from inner pain.
Danielle created this play because Black women are misunderstood.
She brought me along because she knew I knew that too.
We wanted to speak bold about this without turning it into a metaphor.
We didn’t want to be general about Black life by talking about an entity.
We wanted to talk about Black complexity by humanizing, not heroizing.
We wanted to show these women in their truest form.
We didn’t make excuses for them.
We didn’t go out of our way to be outrageous.
We simply present them truthfully & embrace them because we understand them.
These women fall & get up.
They fail & then rationalize their stagnance.
They turn against each other & can’t keep away from each other.
They navigate through a sexist society that targets female choice.
These Black Girl Blues are universal.
(take a breath)
…
…
…
The feedback on the show blows my mind.
The surprise isn’t the feedback, it’s who the feedback comes from.
An elderly White man approached Danielle & said Keisha was his favorite character.
A Black woman around my Mom’s age told me she was reluctant at first because of the show’s title & has now seen it twice.
We had a woman tell us that Stephanie was basically her own mother.
The relatability is a bonus because we did not go into this project with an audience in mind.
Nor did we try to make it accessible & safe.
We told a story because there was a theatrical void that needed to be filled.
& I’ll close with this:
if Danielle hadn’t turn 30 and given birth to her first son,
this play never would have existed
Anthony D’Juan,
May 1st 2023
