As Shirley and Dwight bury their mother, they remember their upbringing in 1980s Chapeltown, Leeds differently. In the height of racial discrimination, police brutality and poverty, the struggle for survival ripped through their family.
Zodwa Nyoni is a playwright and poet. She was the 2014 Writer-in-Residence at the West Yorkshire Playhouse via the Channel 4 Playwrights’ Scheme. She has previously been Apprentice Poet-in-Residence at Ilkely Literature Festival (2013), Leeds Kirkgate Market (2012) and Writer-in-Residence at I Love West Leeds Festival (2010). She was recently under commission as part of the Manchester Royal Exchange’s New Stages Writing Initiative. She was also part of the 2015 Creative England iWrite Regional New Voices Initiative.
Dwight was discovering what it meant to be an autistic young black boy in a world determined never to understand him. Shirley was desperately trying to forge her own independence away from unfair expectations at school and home.
Now as adults, they need to bring together the fractured pieces of their past to move forward together.
Nancy Medina directs Zodwa Nyoni’s gripping and heartfelt drama that explores the complexities and beauty of what it really means to care for one another. More https://kilntheatre.com/whats-on/the-darkest-part-of-the-night/
