Peace of Clay

Theatre Raleigh

REFLECTIONS: PEACE OF CLAY

Playwrights Howard L. Craft and Mike Wiley didn’t know they were working on their next new piece—and their first stage collaboration together—as they swapped stories during a series of road trips across the state for the North Carolina Arts Council. But when they realized how similar their small-town childhoods were (Wiley in Roanoke, Virginia; Craft in Goldsboro, before moving to Durham), the pair decided to tell a story close to both, about an artistic African-American teenager coming of age in the 1980s. Central character Clay dreams of documenting his community’s life in the fictitious town of Bullins, N.C., as a filmmaker. His mother, a waitress named Berdean, sees no future in that and tries to convince him to change course. North Carolina Theatre and Theatre Raleigh co-commissioned this staged reading for their new works-in-progress initiative; a ticket buys admission to both shows in the series. Aurelia Belfield directs a top-flight cast including Yolanda Rabun, Neeko Williams, and Philip Bernard Smith. —Byron Woods