{"id":102661,"date":"2020-10-01T17:57:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T00:57:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=102661"},"modified":"2026-03-02T16:02:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T00:02:53","slug":"staging-white-nights-black-paradises-virtual-performance-at-the-museum-of-the-african-diaspora","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/?page_id=102661","title":{"rendered":"Staging White Nights, Black Paradise<\/i>\u2019s Virtual Performance at the Museum of the African Diaspora"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sikivu Hutchinson (fourth from left) with cast<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In May 2019, I received a California Humanities grant<\/a> for my play White Nights, Black Paradise<\/em>. The award provides funding for a series of performances and community discussions centering Black women\u2019s role in Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Based on my 2015 novel of the same name, the play is the first dramatic production (steeped in the speculative and historical fiction traditions) to focus on the lived experiences, social history, moral dilemmas, and relationships of the African American Peoples Temple community. Prior to the pandemic, the production was scheduled to take place at San Francisco\u2019s Museum of the African Diaspora<\/a> (MoAD) in May 2020. In late August, we transitioned to Zoom, in partnership with MoAD, with a cast of exemplary multigenerational actors from Los Angeles and San Francisco (many of whom performed in the production\u2019s L.A. debut at the Hudson Theater in 2018).<\/p>\n

Framed within a non-linear, poetic structure, the play contextualizes Peoples Temple vis-\u00e0-vis the Great Migration, the Women\u2019s movement, Black Power, and Black disillusionment with traditional African American church institutions. It problematizes historical portrayals of Jonestown that center on Jim Jones and marginalize Black women\u2019s contributions to the church movement. A key element evokes the diversity of religious belief among the members of Peoples Temple, who ran the gamut from Christian Pentecostal to atheist.<\/p>\n

I directed the play in rehearsals over the course of three weeks, focusing on the evocative language, intimate relationships, historical context, and interiority of the characters. It was a frequently knotty process made all the more challenging by the technical snares of Zoom. Despite these variables, we were able to navigate the complexity of the piece through the powerful interpretations of the multi-talented cast: Cydney W. Davis, Breeanna Judy, Erin Aubry Kaplan, Philip McNair, Cheri Miller,\u00a0Scott St. Patrick, Elvinet Piard,\u00a0Darrell Philip, Elise Robertson, Charlotte Williams, JC Cadena, Ella Turenne, and Selene Whittington. Having worked with many of the actors in several iterations of the play\/manuscript (including the 2016 short film<\/a> and the 2017 staged reading at L.A.\u2019s Zephyr Theatre), I was profoundly appreciative of the family-like vibe we\u2019ve developed over the past four years.<\/p>\n

The post-performance discussion with Dr. James Taylor and Wanda Sabir analyzed the sociopolitical relevance and legacy of Peoples Temple and Jonestown for the Black diaspora. Drawing from his scholarship on the Temple\u2019s racial politics and internal culture, Dr. Taylor critiqued Jones\u2019 appropriation of Black religious and charismatic traditions. Sabir reflected on Black women\u2019s agency with respect to sexual violence, resistance struggle, and contemporary San Francisco politics. The discussion also framed the play within the current national context of Black Lives Matter movement resistance against state violence, white supremacy, and economic disenfranchisement \u2013 all factors that compelled Black folks to become deeply invested in the Peoples Temple movement.<\/p>\n

While the pandemic has precluded live performances of the play for now, actress-activist Cheri Miller (who played two key roles in the production, that of teacher Ernestine Markham and Woman 1, a member of the play\u2019s Black woman-led \u201cGreek chorus\u201d) and I are exploring the possibility of bringing the production to the African American Arts and Culture Center in San Francisco for their annual Black Theater Festival. The grant also calls for a mini-documentary with survivor interviews. We are also considering developing a miniseries with the cast.<\/p>\n

Feedback from audience members who responded to MoAD\u2019s evaluation was uniformly positive. One respondent commented that \u201cI was in 8th grade when the Jones Town event occurred. I did not know the back story about the role gentrification played in the massacre.\u201d Others commented on being enriched by learning the \u201cunder-looked history and impact of the People’s Temple and Jonestown\u201d and Black women\u2019s marginalized influence and roles.<\/p>\n

(Sikivu Hutchinson is an educator, author, and filmmaker. Her writing credits include\u00a0Godless Americana: Race and Religious Rebels<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Moral Combat: Black Atheists, Gender Politics, and the Values Wars<\/a> and her latest book Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist, and Heretical<\/a>. She is a regular contributor to\u00a0<\/em>the jonestown report. Her complete writings for the site are here<\/a>. She may be reached at\u00a0shutch2396@aol.com<\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In May 2019, I received a California Humanities grant for my play White Nights, Black Paradise. The award provides funding for a series of performances and community discussions centering Black women\u2019s role in Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Based on my 2015 novel of the same name, the play is the first dramatic production (steeped in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":102488,"menu_order":42,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-102661","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102661","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=102661"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134602,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102661\/revisions\/134602"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/102488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonestown.sdsu.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=102661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}