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So Goes We
Jacqueline E. Lawton
Jacqueline E. Lawton is a playwright, dramaturg, producer, and advocate for access, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the American theater. Her produced plays include Blood-bound and Tongue-tied, Deep Belly Beautiful, Edges of Time, The Hampton Years, Intelligence, Mad Breed, and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Her work has been developed and presented at the following venues: Classical Theater of Harlem, Folger Shakespeare Library, The Kennedy Center, Pasadena Playhouse, Rep Stage, Rorschach Theater Company, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Round House Theatre, Theater J, and Woolly Mammoth Theater Company. Lawton has received commissions from Arena Stage, Adventure Theatre & ATMTC Academy, National New Play Network, National Portrait Gallery, National Museum of American History, Round House Theatre, Tantrum Theater, and Theater J. She received her MFA in playwriting from the University of Texas at Austin. She is a 2012 TCG Young Leaders of Color award recipient and an alum of the National New Play Network, Arena Stageās Playwrightsā Arena, and Center Stageās Playwrights Collective. Lawton is an associate professor in the Department of Dramatic Art and co-director of Southern Futures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a dramaturg for PlayMakers Repertory Company and a proud member of the Dramatist Guild.
Setting
This socio-political performance piece is presented as a choral drama. The story follows the fraught and intersecting journeys of asylum seekers and their legal advocates in post-2016 America as the country draws shut its proverbial āgolden door.ā
Production History
New Play Development Workshop at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Department of Dramatic Art, December 2019.
Cast
| Kervens Jean-Baptiste | Thaddaeus Edwards |
| Dominique Jean-Baptiste | Rasool Jahan |
| Josie Lamont-Patterson | Tia James |
| Kazima Lamont-Patterson | MonĆØt Marshall |
| Sarita de la Cruz Snyder | Sarita OcĆ³n |
Production Team
| Director | JaMeeka Holloway-Burrell |
| Dramaturg | Jules Odendahl-James |
| Stage Directions | Takhona Hlatshwako |
| Stage Manager | Erin Bell |
Characters
Josie Lamont-Patterson (black woman, forties), an immigration lawyer.
Kazima Lamont-Patterson (black woman, forties), Josieās wife, geneticist, community-based activist and organizer.
Dominique Jean-Baptiste (black woman, thirties), ethics professor, political activist, refugee seeking political asylum.
Sarita de la Cruz Snyder (Latinx woman, forties), Josieās best friend, immigration lawyer.
Kervens Jean-Baptiste (black man, forties), Dominiqueās husband, economics professor.
Cast Breakdown
Four women, one man.
Time and Place
July 2018 to May 2019.
Various.
Production Notes
ā¢There are five chairs. By each chair, there are water bottles for the actors.
ā¢There are also various props that will be used throughout the play.
ā¢Larger items, such as a table and sofa, are off to the side. These larger items should have casters on them for ease of mobility.
Notes
ā¢(ā) dashes at the end of a sentence are cut-offs by the following line.
ā¢(ā) dashes within a sentence are a self-cut-offs, an acceleration into the next thought.
ā¢(ā¦) ellipses at the end of a sentence indicate a character unsure of what to say or how to say what comes next.
ā¢(Pause) is a shared moment of silence.
ā¢(Beat) is a longer pause in which a shift has occurred, this could be an intenti...
