This story was originally published by ArtsATL.
At an early age, a.k. payne, who uses the pronoun they, learned about playwriting and almost immediately knew it was a field that spoke to them. Now, more than a decade later, the artist has an off-Broadway production to their name and is the winner of the Alliance Theatre’s Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition for this year. ”Furlough’s Paradise” will be given its world premiere production Jan. 31 through March 4 on the Alliance’s Hertz Stage, marking the competition’s 20th anniversary.
The central pair at the heart of payne’s new drama are cousins Sade (Kai Heath) and Mina (Asha Basha Duniani). The two have always been close — growing up on the same street — until the end of their middle school days, when Sade goes to public school and Mina decides to attend a charter school. From there, they grow further apart until they are reunited around age 27 at the funeral of Sade’s mother. Sade is on furlough from prison for three days, and Mina, who attended an Ivy League school, now lives in San Francisco. Both identify as queer.
“They grew up as siblings and are both only children,” payne said. “The story is about them wanting to meet and see each other and wrestle with some of the things that tried to divide them and keep them from each other. Sade is deeply witty and funny. I think she cares a lot about community and has a lot of epic dreams. Mina is figuring out who she is in many ways and trying to heal from things that have kept her silent and created structures around her.”
“Furlough’s Paradise” examines how small events can forever affect individuals, the playwright said. “There’s the reality of the community Sade was part of and the amount of investment from her mother that shaped how she was able to find her way in the world,” payne said.
Credit: Courtesy of Alliance Theatre
Credit: Courtesy of Alliance Theatre
Both actors feel their characters are fully dimensional. Heath called Sade a bold woman who speaks from her heart. In prison, she is without a filter and shows up as her full self. “You fully see her as a person and get to know her,” she said. “Her rights were taken away, and she had to make something out of nothing and live with her decisions. Her interactions are limited, but she has been able to build a chosen family for herself while there.”
Duniani’s Mina is a younger Black woman who finds herself sacrificing her identity and dreams to accommodate people and their goals, which she feels is common in the Black female experience. Meeting Sade after such a long time is tense. “These two have been raised like Siamese twins and are now separated,” Duniani said. “Sade is the only person alive who really knows her as her real self. There is a longing and excitement to be reunited — a desire for them to be reconnected emotionally and reclaim their sisterhood.”
The playwright started working on “Furlough’s Paradise” in spring 2022. One of the goals was to shape a play that spoke, in some ways, about the relationship with their own cousin. “It’s definitely not us, but it has remnants of the relationship,” payne said.
While in seventh grade at a Pittsburgh arts middle school, payne learned about a festival for young playwrights. The 12-year-old wrote a play for the first time and entered, promptly becoming enamored with the craft and nuances of playwriting. “I was inspired by the way playwriting opened space for community and had the capacity to take other people around to particular ideas,” payne said.
After high school, the playwright received a bachelor’s degree in English and African American studies from Yale and graduated from Yale’s David Geffen School of Drama last year with an MFA in playwriting. Oscar winner Tarell Alvin McCraney — a past winner of the Alliance/Kendeda National Graduate Playwriting Competition — served as a mentor for payne.
Credit: Courtesy of Alliance Theatre
Credit: Courtesy of Alliance Theatre
A lot has happened since that first middle school project. “I think my ideas have changed and shifted, and I have learned more about the world,” payne said. “That has formed a lot of the way I think about freedom, justice and liberation. I’ve also learned skills from mentors and teachers.”
The artist’s profile is also a lot higher today — besides winning national playwriting awards, the play “Amani” (which starred Heath) had its world premiere off-Broadway at the Rattlestick Theater, a co-production with the National Black Theatre, in February 2023.
The playwright said the experience working with the Alliance on “Furlough’s Paradise” has been positive. They expressed high praise for director Tinashe Kajese-Bolden, also the company’s artistic director, and for what they called “a great producing team and community of artists and collaborators.”
It’s been vital for payne, as a queer and Black playwright, to talk about Black lives in their work. Representation matters, and receiving national recognition is something of which they are proud.
“I think that in order to create space where people can truly be, and move closer and closer to freedom, there is a need for the many different people that exist in the world,” payne said. “Representation, a lot of times, allows people to know that their stories matter and that they exist. Oftentimes, I have seen plays where what I experienced in isolation actually was shared by others — and allows me to acknowledge that I am not alone.”
THEATER PREVIEW
“Furlough’s Paradise”
Jan. 31-March 4. $45-$60; teens, $10. (Best enjoyed by audiences 15 and up.) Alliance Theatre’s Hertz Stage, 1280 Peachtree St. NE. 404-733-4600, alliancetheatre.org
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Jim Farmer is the recipient of the 2022 National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Theatre Feature and a nominee for Online Journalist of the Year. A member of five national critics’ organizations, he covers theater and film for ArtsATL. A graduate of the University of Georgia, he has written about the arts for 30-plus years. Jim is the festival director of Out on Film, Atlanta’s LGBTQ film festival, and lives in Avondale Estates with his husband, Craig, and dog, Douglas.
Credit: ArtsATL
Credit: ArtsATL
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