Different Shades of Black by Ilana Jael

If you’ve ever wanted to know more about what happens behind the scenes at New City Players (NCP), you’ve come to the right place. Welcome to the first installment of The Build, which will serve as a chronicle of all things NCP. 

As most of you probably know, New City Players is a small, not-for-profit Fort Lauderdale based theatre company with a mission of creating community through transformative theatre and a vision of helping South Florida become a more empathetic and thoughtful community, which fuels our unique approach to theatre-making.

We aim to stage powerful, poignant productions that engage with culturally relevant issues, as well as to start a dialogue on those issues with weekly talkbacks during our show’s run and with our signature Forum, which brings together experts and community members for a panel discussion and Q and A.

We also make it a priority to make space for others to share their stories with other community engagement events like CitySpeaks and NCPLab, our monthly open gathering for theatre artists and community members looking to create and connect through sharing new work.

And to briefly introduce myself; I’m Ilana Jael, an aspiring playwright, occasional actor, and semi-competent blogger who was asked to join the company around a year ago. Since rambling about how much I love New City Players has historically been one of my favorite activities anyhow, I’m excited to take the lead on this project, which might include anything from diary-like reflections on our productions and community engagement projects to more formal journalism or dramaturgy related to our artistic work.

We see sharing our thoughts, insights and ideas as another way to bring people together; as yet another way for us to start meaningful conversations and to fulfill our mission of fostering empathy and building community—building the “city” that our name implies. 

For the record, the name “New City Players” was actually inspired by a Godspell lyric that raises the idea of building a “beautiful city”—”brick by brick” and “heart by heart.” Which makes it particularly appropriate for me to start ~building~ the scenescape here by reflecting on a literal build; that is, on this past weekend’s load-in for our upcoming production of Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs, my first as an NCP ensemble member. 

Load-in, if you didn’t know, is the process of loading a show’s set “in” to a theatrical venue, assembling it, and otherwise preparing the space for a production. And while it may not be the most exciting part of a production compared to the buzzy opening night, the organized chaos of load-in encapsulates what might just be the thing I love most about theatre: the sense of shared purpose that emerges when a group of people dedicate themselves wholeheartedly to putting on a play, whatever menial labor that might entail. 

While some company members were at load-in because they had official roles in the production, others, like myself, were there simply for the sheer love of it all. Honestly, it was also refreshing just to have an excuse to be out and about with actual humans when my day job as a remote content writer means I spend a good deal of the rest of my time alone and staring at screens. 

I’ve always relied on theater as a way to combat my natural solitary tendencies, and the particular brand of adrenaline-soaked “let’s put on a show” camaraderie that develops among an ensemble as a production approaches was something I wasn’t sure I would ever recapture once I left behind my high school and college theatre troupes. 

But it’s something that I feel in spades whenever I’m working on an NCP project, making me feel less like I was doing anyone else any favors by lending a hand than that I’m ridiculously lucky to even be there. It also wasn’t lost on me that this was New City Players’ first load-in not only after the pandemic shuttered theatres worldwide, but after an internal crisis threatened the future of our company. 

If one thinks of theatre itself as a privilege, even tasks as tedious as cutting out and meticulously fraying the burlap leaves that will litter the post-apocalyptic set of Lungs becomes loaded with an almost spiritual significance. Building the right physical foundation is what allows all of a play’s glorious artistic work to happen upon it, the bricks laid so that a tower might arise. 

I even felt an odd sense of accomplishment at having more or less destroyed the pair of leggings that I came to load-in wearing by splattering them with the black paint I’d been touching up the theatre walls with. The stains fondly reminded me of similarly messy set-painting days past, feeling less like an encumbrance than like a memento—or like brandished battle scars. A signifier that I was, yes, once more a part of it all, back and fraying in the theatre fray. 

Not to say, of course, that things were entirely idyllic. There were parts of the process that were stressful and exhausting, and some important lessons learned along the way. For example: if you are told to find black paint, you should probably ascertain not only whether the paint in each can you have scavenged is black, but whether it is black enough. 

It turns out that one of three paint cans I found actually contained very dark gray as opposed to black proper, which we didn’t realize until after we’d already painted portions of two flats and a wall with it, necessitating a do-over the next day. 

Sure, the specific coloring of walls may sound like a small detail. But under the harsh glow of stage lights, the splotchiness of gray against a black backdrop would’ve been highlighted to the audience, potentially taking attention away from what looks to be shaping up into an otherwise stellar show. 

So far, I’ve only been privy to the first read through of Lungs, but, even then, the story and performances were so powerful that I found myself getting inordinately emotional, even close to tears. The play follows a couple as they meander through the complexities of the question of whether or not to have a child, especially given the encroaching threat of climate change.

And while the environment admittedly hasn’t been a cause that I’ve dedicated much time or thought to, it is something that we all need to be more aware of. Amidst the hustle and bustle of everyday life, it’s easy to simply not think about things like sustainability and the future of our planet. But, by ignoring our environmental impact, we may be creating a world for ourselves or for our descendants that is irreversibly stained by our current selfishness. 

While some mistakes can be easily painted over, there’s no do-overs if it’s our earth that we’re making uninhabitable, and there’s no way humanity can live up to its full potential if we don’t have a healthy world to live in, just as there are few plays that could function without a solid set. What artistic endeavors could possibly be undertaken in a too-warm world overrun with floods and fire—with the air too thick to breathe from and smog rendering the sky in shades of black?

Meanwhile, another cool feature of this particular production of Lungs is that it stars two Black actors as the play’s only two characters. (Ok, pun kind of intended...) Another one of NCP’s core values is our commitment to diversity, and, while stories that explore the specific Black experience are certainly valuable in their own right, we don’t believe that those are the only stories that should be told about Black characters. Along with reckoning with issues related to their race, Black people also have to reckon with the same issues that everyone else does, and showing them in every shade of their humanity means telling plenty of those stories as well. 

I couldn’t be more excited to see Lungs in its full glory when it opens this weekend, and, most likely, to hit the Front Row member exclusive pre-show party pre-opening night. There’s a lot more super-cool stuff on the horizon for NCP, all of which I’m quite looking forward to rambling about—so stay tuned if you want to stay up to date on everything we’re building!