Playwright-actor examines slavery, racial conflict

Ty Jones, AS ’92, ’95M, says he believes strongly that Americans need to deal with the residual effects of slavery by engaging in a civil debate about the issue, and with that goal in mind, he wrote and starred in the play Emancipation
this spring.

The play, which won enthusiastic reviews and was submitted for a Pulitzer Prize, ran from April 10 to May 10 in New York City’s Audubon Ballroom in the Malcolm X & Dr. Betty Shabazz Memorial and Educational Center, the site of Malcolm X’s 1965 assassination. It was produced by the nonprofit company Classical Theatre of Harlem [www.classicaltheatreofharlem.org].

The play examines the powerful 1831 slave rebellion led by Nat Turner that became a watershed event in America’s long and troubled history of slavery and racial conflict.

In a recent interview, Jones described Emancipation as an examination of the impact that race and the legacy of slavery have had on the American psyche.

“I think our life, our existence, our being, is largely informed by how much contradiction one is willing to embrace,” said Jones, a graduate of UD’s Professional Theatre Training Program (PTTP). “The challenge is that since we live on top of one another, society must enroll its citizens to find agreement on those contradictions.”

Also appearing in Emancipation were fellow PTTP alumni Wayne Pyle (1995), Jenny Bennett (1999) and Gisela Chipe (2007).

“The best actors are from the PTTP,” Jones says. “A third of my cast are PTTP graduates, and it would have been more if some hadn’t had other employment.”

Jones credits program graduates with being able to “understand the most abecedarian approach to creating art—teamwork. PTTP graduates get that as actors we are vessels for every word on every page, not just for every word of your part.”

A recipient of a 2003 Obie Award for his work in the off-Broadway production of Jean Genet’s The Blacks: A Clown Show, Jones has numerous television and movie roles to his credit, including Redacted, a 2007 film directed by Brian De Palma.