Truth Beneath the Fiction

A playwright is as much a historian/dramaturg, statistician and sleuth as he or she is a writer, creator of characters and storyteller.  Often what we see dramatized is a mix of the playwright's research, imagination and craft, so that what becomes a production that we consume as a form of entertainment, is usually fueled by some form of truth that lies well below the surface.   He or she is consciously exploring places that are little known, or maybe forgotten, or conveniently stored away from the selected version of history we want people to believe in.   Now the fact that the playwright gathers factual information and considers/compiles it into mounds does not mean that he or she is bound by the information itself.  Because they're artists they then may choose to select a place and time- a world, if you will, in which they begin to tell the story of where things or at least something that they're passionate about comes from.  So it is with Dusting, Andre N. Jones' latest production, slated to premiere at the DC Black Theater Festival on June 30, and July 1, 2012.   Here's an interview that was conducted a few weeks back in which Mr. Jones explains where the inspiration for Dusting came from.

http://youtu.be/uAgkdRhIXUI