Readers Theater at Attucks premeires tonight

Tonight is Ponca City’s one chance to see Fences at Attucks Community Center. Fences is a staged reading, which is when the actors simply read their scripts and act vocally. Christiana Rich-Splawn, the director said the goal of Readers Theater at Attucks is to focus on minority playwrights and plays.

"It’s [Fences] about an African American family in the hill district of Pittsburg in 1957, which was essentially the slums and it’s about the fences that people put up in their lives or have to break through in their lives," Rich-Splawn said. "For example, the fence of racial discrimination, the fences that exist between generations like between a father and a son or a husband and a wife, the fences you put up around yourself to protect yourself from hurt or that you put around your family to protect your family or in the case of Troy, who played in the Negro Leagues, hitting a home run over the fences. And baseball is used as a metaphor a lot in this play for death and reality, so that’s what it’s about."

Ironically 1957 was also when Attucks, Ponca City’s colored school was desegregated and t onight at 7 is your chance to see this Pulitzer Prize winning play. This isn’t the last play the readers theater will do though. Rich-Splawn said she plans to start researching Native American plays.

“Our community is very, very diverse and I want to start focusing on that diversity,” Rich-Splawn said.

Rich-Splawn said they are waiting to see how Fences goes before they make any decisions about the next play, but they are thinking sometime this winter.

The Readers Theater at Attucks is in conjunction with the Attucks Alumni Reunion and is free to the public. However, donations are accepted.