REUNION BY KIA CORTHRON

“MAY: Okay, so the girls can say: I am Addie Mae Collins. I was fourteen years old. 
JO: I am Denise McNair! I was eleven years old. 
MAY: And the boys could say:
I am Ahed Atef Bakr. I was ten years old.
I am Zakariya Ahed Bakr. I was ten years old.
I am Mohammad Ramiz Bakr. I was eleven years old. 
I am Ismail Mahmoud Bakr. I was nine years old.” 

Two women meet after a long time on a park bench, one African-American, one Jewish. The limits of empathy – across cultures, across friendship, and across acts of horror – are tested. With whom do we choose to empathize? Or do we choose at all?

Kia Corthron’s plays have premiered in New York (Playwrights Horizons, NY Theatre Workshop, Atlantic Theater Company, Manhattan Theatre Club), in regional theatres across the U.S., and in London (Royal Court, Donmar Warehouse). Her debut novel, The Castle Cross the Magnet Carter, is a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize.http://www.kiacorthron-author.com/index.htm

 Sources listed at the end of the play text.