It’s been 60 years since
Brown v. Board of Ed. How
far have we really come?
The play revolves around a mother from Newark who is trying to
prevent her daughter from repeating the same steps she did as a
child. While she was a successful student, she believed that the
high grades earned at her Newark
school failed to prepare her as
well as the kids from richer school
districts.
“She wasn’t able to go and have
the life she had bragged to everyone that she would have,”
explained Salter. “Her late realization of that broke her spirit a
bit. Now she finds herself with a
daughter and living in a similar
community to the one she grew
up in. The idea that her daughter
would face the same fate bothers
her immensely.”
She does what she thinks is best
for her child. She lies. She com-
New Jersey Stage
mits school residency fraud by
using a fake address in Millburn
so her daughter can go to school
there. All is well with her plan until the school launches an enrollment audit.
“When I write plays, I always start
from a place of fire,” explained
Salter. “A place where I have a
distinct opinion or something I
want to say. Usually, if I’m doing
it right, by the time I’ve come up
with the characters and the situations there’s something that gives
me problems. And it gives me
problems because I haven’t extended my empathy to it. But the
moment I try to figure out what’s
really driving it and assume that
what’s driving him or her is also
in me somewhere is the moment
I start to understand where it’s
coming from.
October 2014
pg 18