Story Line Press published that revision of The Darker Face of the Earth in early 1994. I still held no hopes for a production, but I thought it would be nice for literature studies—and maybe it would even get some exposure in staged readings like the one the Washington, D.C. director Jennifer Nelson—who had read the play in script—was able to arrange at the Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland shortly after publication. But as it turned out, a board member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had gotten a copy of the galleys in her hands and recommended it to the Festival dramaturg, and before I knew it, OSF offered to workshop it with a first production option. They hired Jennifer Nelson to direct the workshop, and so I spent three weeks in Ashland, Oregon that summer watching my scenes come to life—some more, some less—in a rehearsal room, discussing, rewriting, making notes for possible changes to mull over later. At about that time the dramaturg of Crossroads Theatre in New Brunswick, New Jersey came across the play in a bookstore, and Crossroads approached the Oregon Shakespeare Festival to offer a pooling of resources. The play was first produced in Oregon in the summer of 1996, directed by Crossroads artistic director Ricardo Khan. By that time I had rewritten it, mostly on the basis of my experiences during the OSF workshop but also in response to several staged readings—among them the brilliant one that Derek Walcott directed in November 1995 at the 92nd Street “Y” in New York City, where Walcott and his talented cast brought out the full potential of what I was trying to say. Crossroads then staged The Darker Face of the Earth in the fall of 1997; they had submitted it to the Fund for New American Plays at the Kennedy Center and been granted major financial support from the Fund, which in turn led to a month-long run in Washington, D.C. following the New Brunswick shows.

Robert McDowell:

Please tell us more about the productions the play has had so far. Your favorite?

Rita Dove: