“Accidental Death of a Black Motoris”t drops the story right smack in the middle of one of the United States’ worst abuses of power. A crazy, maniacal Actor infiltrates police headquarters—posing as the Chief Justice—and gets the bad cops to unwittingly confess the truth behind their victim’s “accidental” death.

I became involved with the Conspirators after attending one of their workshops in the summer of 2019. There, I trained in their particular house style, referred to—tongue firmly in cheek—as “The Style”. This was a ferocious blend of clown, commedia dell’arte, vaudeville, kabuki, the work of Ariane Mnouchkine, and Looney Tunes slapstick.

Fascinated, and wanting to work with the company further, I came on board as the Assistant Director for The Accidental Death of a Black Motorist. Through this position, I learned about building a new play from scratch and the unique approach of staging physically-driven theatre—such as how to develop lazzi (comedic moments actors improvise to build their character), the use of extreme emotional states, and how to tell a coherent story amidst seeming chaos.

In the process, I was inspired to draw upon my skills as a journalist and conduct my own research into police violence and misuse of power. My findings were critical to bringing immediacy and urgency to this work. For the audience, I pulled together a dramaturgical display of historic moments of police misconduct in Chicago’s past, with literature from Black Lives Matter to encourage better education and involvement in this issue. I realized that though I came onto this project as a theatre professional, bringing my journalistic background into the forefront was able to provide me with great insight.

“Ayn Rand’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’” shows the Conspirators trying to save Debbie Schultz’s holiday special by staging the Capra classic… as if it were written by Objectivist writer Ayn Rand . Turns out that life in Bedford Falls is a lot better off without George Bailey — people can finally have a reason to get out and succeed without the help of his meddling charity work! What’s George to do? Who’s the real “scurvy little spider”? Who’re you calling laissez-faire? And will Uncle Billy ever get off the blasted stage?

I always need a moment to catch my breath after that title…

Everything I did in this show I built from scratch: as written in the working script, the role of Sheila Stein / Mary Hart was admittedly pretty thin. Sheila was a mute token Jewish undergrad who managed the title cards between scenes, and Mary Hart onlu appeared once as a visual gag. But I felt more could be made out of it — I write for a living, so what could I provide here that’s missing?

Over the course of our two weeks of rehearsals, I crafted short speeches for Sheila to deliver as she introduced each scene, in which she protested against Eurocentric holiday specials— sordid facts about “It’s a Wonderful Life” and the history of antisemitism. Sheila’s short speeches grew in intensity over time, climaxing in a complete breakdown where she accused the audience of sitting back and doing nothing while history repeated itself today: ”The world is burning!! There are children being put in cages!! This is not a Wonderful Life!!!”

Mary Hart’s brief moment was also elaborated upon in collaboration with Elizabeth Quilter, who played Sam Wainwright (hee-haw). Together, we developed a hilariously uncomfortable double-act, showing how in this world without George Bailey, Mary and Sam, let’s just say, “enjoyed” each other very much, to George’s horror.

Overall, I managed to take a bare-bones role and flip it into an opportunity to explore darker, more unsettling comedy.