The Billboard

Natalie Y. Moore

• Publisher: Haymarket Books
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781642596700
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Drama
• Index: Literature

The Billboard is about a fictional Black women's clinic in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood on the South Side and its fight with a local gadfly running for City Council who puts up a provocative billboard: "Abortion is genocide. The most dangerous place for a Black child is his mother's womb, " spurring on the clinic to fight back with their own provocative sign: "Black women take care of their families by taking care of themselves. Abortion is self-care. #Trust Black Women." The book also has a foreword and afterword and Q&A with a founder of reproductive justice. As a play and book, The Billboard is a cultural force that treats abortion as more than pro-life or pro-choice.

THE BILLBOARD

CAST OF CHARACTERS

TANYA GRAY: executive director of Black Women’s Health Initiative (BWHI), mid-40s

DAWN WILLIAMSON: chair of the board of directors for BWHI, mid-40s

KAYLA BROWN: program assistant at BWHI, 19 or early 20s

DEMETRIUS DREW: city council candidate, mid-40s

CHERYL LEWIS: city council member representing Englewood, late 50s/early 60s

SETTING

Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago

TIME

Fall 2018

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

This multimedia production requires sound, video, and/or projection design during montage and social media scenes.

ACT I, SCENE I

Conference room at the Black Women’s Health Initiative (BWHI), a medical clinic and reproductive rights center in the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side. The center’s name is a mural on the wall. A phone is in the middle of the table. A laptop is too. A coffee pot is in the corner on a long counter. Various brochures are stacked on the counter. The room is light and airy, not the feel of fluorescent-lighted office space, soft lamp lighting. A projector screen is in the front. Lush green plants are in the room. Walls are a cheery yellow. It’s early fall 2018.

TANYA wears a BWHI black T-shirt, white doctor coat, jeans. She is sitting down with a mug of coffee.

KAYLA is 19 years old. She dresses casually but not unprofession-ally. She walks in, a ball of energy.

KAYLA	Dr. Tanya! Dr. Tanya! I did what you told me to do!
TANYA	What’s that?
KAYLA	This weekend I read For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.
TANYA	Well?
KAYLA	It was fiyah! But you know what I think? There should be a sequel… called Lady in Kayla set here in Englewood!
TANYA	And who would play you?
KAYLA	Duh. Me! (Twirls) I have all the personality to take my story on Broadway.
TANYA	Yes you do!

They laugh.

KAYLA	Dr. Tanya, I want to thank you again for giving me a job here … while I figure out my school situation. I ain’t got the money right now and my mom is tripping, talking ’bout I gotta pay my own way. I’m thinking about going to junior college first and then transferring.
TANYA	Of course! We adore you, Kayla. When you walked in the door as a thirteen-year-old, we all knew you were special, and a leader. I’ll never forget how you organized all the other girls to demand better after school snacks.
KAYLA	Ooohhh … you wanted us to be vegan like you … and we were like, nah, that’s not lit!
TANYA	I wanted our first Brilliant Black Girls program here to be indoctrinated in the glorious ways of all things green. But you got the last laugh.
KAYLA	I still can’t believe you agreed to let us sprinkle crushed up Flamin’ Hot Cheetos over our kale salads.
TANYA	Disgusting. But the art of compromise, I suppose. (Jokes) I hope my vegan cult doesn’t find out.
KAYLA	I won’t tell if you don’t tell! But technically flamin’ hots are vegan!
TANYA	There’s a reason that red dye discolors your fingers. Imagine what it does to your insides! You do know doctors say flamin’ hots are the equivalent of a mild opiate addiction.
KAYLA	I do not need to go to flamin’ hot rehab, okay. Anyway … I have another idea … one that you will L-O-V-E!
TANYA	glances at her bemused.
TANYA	We’re not putting a junk food vending machine in the kitchen.
KAYLA	Nooooo … something better. Let ME create social media accounts for BWHI.
TANYA	We already have one.
KAYLA	You only have a Facebook account. No offense but Facebook is for old people. We need to get on the ’gram, Twitter, and do a daily morning Snapchat video.
TANYA	This is one more thing to keep track of.
KAYLA	I promise to do a good job. I promise I won’t be ratchet.
TANYA	This is probably what my mom felt like when I asked for a beeper as a teenager.
KAYLA	What’s a beeper?
TANYA	Exactly.
KAYLA	So… can I be in charge of social media? We can recruit for Brilliant Black Girls, send reminders for flu shots, give breastfeeding tips—I can even tweet your inspiration...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword: “Will Our Self-Righteousness Be Our Demise?”
• Introduction
• The Billboard
• Afterword: The Unfinished Business
• Interview with Toni Bond
• Acknowledgments
• Back Cover