"We see the same stars and tell different stories. A look through the eyes of ten characters as they navigate the minefields and playgrounds of life. From fifteen-year-old Rhonda to the Veteran Hutsey, these stand-alone stories of teenagers, veterans, elders, addicts, queers, teachers, and others mingle haphazardly alongside and within each of us as they are 'pulled into the current' landscape. What's the aerial view of the terrain?

What does the map look like when you turn it inside out?"

Join us on 05/27 and 05/28 for moderated post show conversations

Letta discusses her inspiration for creating “Pulling It All Into the Current”….

“Pulling it all into the Current”

a solo spoken-word play Written and Performed by Letta Neely
Directed by Greg Allen
Produced by A Revolution of Values Theatre Project
Co-Produced with Fort Point Theatre Channel
Funded with a Live Arts Boston 2022 Grant, The Boston Foundation

DATES:

May 25th, 2023 @ 7:30pm

May 26th, 2023 @ 7:30pm

May 27th, 2023 @ 2:00pm

May 27th, 2023 @ 7:30pm

May 28th, 2023 @ 2:00pm

THANK YOU to all of our partners and supporters.

Excerpt from “Pulling it all into the current”

“I am trying to try. Can you throw that rope to me again, please? It’s going to rain and then there will be sinkholes. I’ll be under the edge, just below the precipice. If you stand there, I hope you’ll see me. I doubt I’ll be screaming. It’s amazing that I run from what feels good. From what is good. I think they made hell too comfortable.”__Ms. Wilkinson 

Meet Letta

Originally from Indianapolis, Indiana, Letta is a Black lesbian playwright, performer, poet, mother, teacher and community activist who has been involved in progressive, anti-racist and queer liberation movements all her adult life. Her work focuses on the connections and intersections of queerness, Blackness, and awareness.

Letta’s first play, Hamartia Blues, was produced by The Theater Offensive at the Boston Center for the Arts in 2002 and received two IRNE [Independent Reviewers of New England] award nominations. Her plays "Last Rites" and "Shackles & Sugar" have been produced in Boston, Philly, and Los Angeles.  In addition to the chapbooks: gawd and alluh huh sistahs and When We Were Mud, Letta has written two books of poetry, Juba and Here (Wildheart Press), which were both finalists for the Lambda Literary Awards. Her literary work has been included in numerous anthologies, literary journals and magazines including Through the Cracks; Sinister Wisdom; Common Lives, Lesbian Lives; Rag Shock; African Voices, Rap Pages, Catch the Fire, Does Your Mama Know, and Roll Call—a Generational Anthology of Social and Political Black Literature & Art. As a member of the Traces/ Remain Ensemble with Deen Rawlins-Harris, she collaborated with Toshi Reagon's  Emerson College residency: Parable Path Boston to develop the Seed to Harvest Book Project. 

Letta is a co-artistic director for Fort Point Theatre Channel and a member of FPTC's Her Story Is, a collective led by independent women writers and artists from the U.S. and Iraq who promote projects aimed at expanding linguistic, artistic and cultural boundaries in response to global conflict and its aftermath with a focus on centralizing the experiences of women.

She is the editor and scriptwriter of Ifé Franklin's "The Slave Narratives of Willie Mae" (book and film). Letta hosts FireWater Poetics (a hybrid open mic w/ feature) at the Elma Lewis Center in the Social Justice Collaborative at Emerson College each month where she is the current StoryWeaver-in-Residence. 

She directed Renita Martin's play, "Unmasked" for Revolution of Values, produced by Greg Allen. She is a NEFA grant recipient of both Collective Imagination for Spatial Justice and Public Art for Spatial Justice funding. Letta recently took on the role as Makayla in Lyralyn Kaye's AFAB (Assigned Female at Birth), an award winning web series. 

Letta is also the Design Lead for the Design Gym at DS4SI (Design Studio for Social Intervention), where world building happens on the scale of the neighborhood. 

Finally, Letta is the Vice President of Programs at Apprentice Learning. 

She, along with Greg Allen, are current LAB grant recipients and are in the process of creating a one-person show, “Pulling It All Into The Current”.

Photographer: Stefanie Belnavis of The Diahann Project