I have laughed more in the first 10 min of 40 YEAR OLD VERSION than anything this year. White man trying to get a black playwright to work on a Harriet Tubman musical is so... hilariously truthful. NYC peeps, theatre ppl, teaching artists, middle age dreamers, you need to watch this! It dropped today on Netflix.
The laughter in "The 40 Year Old Version" also cuts deep b/c every blk playwright I know has experienced all the slights, insults, gaslighting satirized in the movie. Every. Single. One.
Several yrs ago I was introduced to a successful white producer who specialized in telling black stories. He began the meeting by insulting a black playwriting colleague as not being special...just good. Besides being untrue, I knew the subtext of his unprompted attack was that this black playwright probably turned him down. She was probably too smart and/or too powerful to need him. Yet, here was my dumb ass listening to this old white man and not my gut instinct which was telling me 'run, negro! Emancipate yourself.' Anyway, he had a project in mind involving a black college athlete. It sounded interesting until he told me he really wanted the story to be told from the POV of the older white male college dean. I was like 'but why? The story is about this particular black athlete.' We had an interesting back and forth. Finally I was told 'you just don't get it.' Yep, I don't get black stories. Thanks. Oh well. He paid for my fancy lunch. But then again, there's always a price to pay for a free meal.
I've also been hit up to write several slave plays. Guys, I already wrote a few plays about enslavement. You just don't like them b/c in my plays white ppl get their asses beat...like in many of the actual historical events that have been suppressed. Oh well. I guess I don't get slave narratives either. 😂
Also, I spoke to my ancestors: they said my work should pay my rent.
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