‘Jabari Dreams of Freedom’

Ten-year-old Jabari loves to paint. Through these paintings, he escapes the turbulent world around him and the reality of a friend’s violent encounter with police. In his dreams, he meets children and young people from the Civil Rights era, including Ruby Bridges and Claudette Colvin, who teach him how to be fearless. He also meets his hero, former U.S. President Barack Obama, as a young boy on the eve of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Through lessons from the children of the Civil Rights era, the play explores what it means to live in a world where Black children can have the courage to live free. The 45-minute dream uses rap, freedom songs, hip-hop, history and humor to tell the story of a young Black boy from the South Side of Chicago who is afraid to leave his house.

Award-winning playwright and actress Nambi E. Kelley is the winner of the 2020 NNPN annual commission, the Prince Prize 2019 and a Dramatists Guild Foundation Writers Alliance Grant in 2018 and 2019. She was chosen by literary legend Toni Morrison to adapt her novel “Jazz” for Baltimore Center Stage and Marin Theatre Company. Her adaptation of Richard Wright’s “Native Son” premiered off-Broadway in 2019 at The Duke on 42nd Street. She also is a staff writer on Showtime’s “The Chi.”

Joe Plummer’s premier production, “Get Ready,” has been produced by Victory Gardens Theatre, ETA Theatre, The Ensemble Theatre and Penumbra Theatre. It received a BTA award for “Best New Writing of a Play” and several Jeff Award nominations. His musical “I Got’cha: The Story of Joe Tex and the Soul Clan” at The Black Ensemble Theatre in Chicago garnered Plummer two Black Excellence Awards; its New Horizon Theatre production in Pittsburgh took home 11 Onyx Awards. Plummer’s musical “Vee Jay Records” (co-written with Sanetta Gipson) had its first staged reading at Chicago Dramatists. The film version is being produced by and starring Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis.