clone i am a poet playwright and the co director of the let us breathe collective i grew up right here in chicago born and bred well i've been writing pretty much since i could hold a pencil and i started out as a poet and i really got my start in the world of slam poetry and performance poetry and it was through the bent or ship of young to coddle authors a literary organization here in chicago that i was introduced to amazing mentors who were making a living writing and doing what they love and it was through that organization and through the mentorship there that i made the crossover from a poet to a playwright so good friday is a of a play that i wrote in two thousand and nine called the darkest pit the darkest pit was my master's thesis project at the school of the art institute and it came out of me being issued the challenge by one of my former students to write a play that could be easily produced on a college campus with an all female cat and so i wanted to tackle an issue that has been plaguing the nation the mass shootings and school shootings on college campuses  so i decided to set my play in a college classroom as a school shooting was unfolding and in twenty fifteen my close collaborator tara brand encouraged me to revisit that script the darkest pit because it had been produced right out of grad school and didn't have as much development as some of my later plays so i worked on that play the darkest period updating it for twenty fifteen updating the social media elements of that play a through that process an entirely new script good friday was born so same plot point fame characters but new dialogue from the dark as pitch to good friday i've written about eight or nine full l plays and a ton more short plays that have been produced all over chicago and so good friday is a play that i hope audiences will leave arguing about it's a very  play there are no answers there are no heroes and no one gets to leave the play feeling good unfortunately third is not that kind of player but i do think that it will provoke some really serious critical dialogue about our complicity in violence and what our responsibility to one another is and what radical change really looks like i feel the story of good friday needs to be told because american theater needs more complex stories featuring women and about women where women get to be multi dimensional beings on stage and not just the props in some man's fantasy and so good friday tackles millennial feminism and social media activism in a really fresh and urgent way and i think that that is the kind of invigorating their american theater needs if it's going to survive the netflix era so good friday takes place on a college campus as a school shooting is unfolding i had a workshop of the play illinois wesley and university earlier this year where we actually did a site specific production we put the player in an actual college classroom so working with actual college students has been really influences of this play as well as researching school shootings and how and why they happen and the different responses their institutions have to them you know all of the characters are so very different we've got a teacher who is very interested in colonialism and liberation struggle we've got a very devout catholic on stage we've got sort of a more grounded like spiritual character on stage so all of the women represent femininity and female sexuality and female intellect very differently and so i give them all equal attention and all of them were very fun to write i think the most valuable advice that i've ever been given is to trust the play the play will tell you what works and what doesn't work and i've been through a lot of development processes i used to hate them i've come to love the revision is where playwriting actually happened not in the first draft but in the development process you will get a lot of conflicting opinions and i always like to tell my collaborators there i am not the authority on my play maybe and one authority on my play among many the reason i love theater is that it allows you an opportunity to collaborate with artists in so many different disciplines directors actors like designers town designers and so i believe that people in every discipline bring a level of expertise to my play but with that you get a whole lot of opinions and as the playwright it's your job to know which ones to trust and which ones are going to serve the play  you can find me on facebook you can also email me at christiana chicago at g mail dot com i've seen your guests and i play and my name is bella boss and i play ariel and go friday my name is heather chrysler i play in natalie hi my name is melissa do pray i play kinsey in good friday was quite a challenge for kinsey and for me as an actor because kinsey is written to be so knowledgeable and she's written to be very militant and she was very a far stretch from what i do a comedi i am able to connect with ariel because her character is packed with a lot of tropes of black woman hood so as a black woman i carry the strobes around with me in my skiing and what resonates within me about my characters that i think about moments where we have seemingly made small mistakes or microaggression and how those small things in our lives can be huge things in other people's lives i met with a lot of victims and i read a lot of books and watched a lot of documentaries and that's how i connected with this role you know about one's been really difficult because sophia is an incredibly religious girl and i was raised in atheist household so at the very beginning it was really hard to connect to but i was able to find things in my own life to connect that text to i think that people should come see this play because it definitely speaks to a lot of aspects that are we're dealing with here in chicago and not as women on a national level this plays beautiful and it's tragic because i think that we need to wake up honestly like there are a lot of things i know that i get to ignore every day and there are things that are everyday and people are so detached from the subject matter productions inspire and five generations through our new streaming app on demand the entire world can experience your blood your play will be seen with no interruptions uncut uncensored plus you can see from advertis let the next generation be influenced by your work by submitting your play today