new show
The Actors Theatre of Georgia and Marietta's New Theatre in the Square presents this adaptation of Richard Wright's searing novel from Nabi E. Kelley. Often noted as the father of Black American literature, Wright's Native Son is a powerful indictment of the racial divide in the 1930s and the struggles faced by young people whose dreams and futures were nothing in the face of ingrained and unjust prejudice that permeated all sections of society in the pre-civil rights era.
chicago, 1930 the story of native son
With his family dependent on him to ease their rat-infested poverty in Chicago's Southside, Bigger Thomas takes a job with The Daltons, a wealthy white family. At odds with his perceived place in the world and his own ambitions, Bigger soon finds himself at the center of a heinous crime involving the family's communist leaning daughter Mary, sealing his fate forever. Native Son asks many questions of the viewer, chief among them, how can a man change his destiny when society has spent his life telling him who he is meant to be?