New Jersey Stage published its 25,000th story in December 2021. As the site approached the milestone, we posed the question on social media as how we should celebrate. One response was to highlight our favorite stories from over the years. We liked this idea, but could not narrow things down to just 25 favorites so we will present a favorite each day from different genres. Every Tuesday we feature one of our favorite stories in theatre. Since today is the start of Black History Month, we are featuring an interview with Ricardo Khan on the play Freedom Rider.
The piece was published on March 23, 2020 and is available here. Ricardo Khan co-founded Crossroads Theatre Company with L. Kenneth Richardson in 1978. The company was the proud recipient of the 1999 Tony Award(R) for Outstanding Regional Theatre in the United States, becoming the first African American theater to receive this honor in doing so.
The historic journey of the Freedom Riders took place on May 4, 1961 when a group of young people, black and white, from colleges and universities across the country, boarded two buses southbound from Washington, DC on a journey to prove that love and compassion could conquer hate and that what was a right for one American should be a right for all Americans. For them, it was a cause worth fighting for in spite of the dangers they knew they would have to face along the way.
Ricardo Khan thought the story would make for a great play. He envisioned the play Freedom Rider as following four characters on their way to the historic trip. One of the most challenging aspects of creating a play that involves several main characters like this is providing each with a unique voice and backstory. Khan solved that problem by incorporating four different writers to each create their own character - each following the journey of a Freedom Rider from a different university, city, and background. The play was written by Murray Horwitz, Nathan Louis Jackson, Kathleen McGhee- Anderson, Ricardo Khan, and Nikkole Salter.
We talk with Khan about the unique way the play was written by several writers, what inspired the idea behind the play, and why the Freedom Rider story is both important to him and should be important to young people of today.
