Things of Dry Hours is a play by Naomi Wallace, originally commissioned by George C. Wolfe for The Joseph Papp Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival. It was first produced by Ted Pappas at the Pittsburgh Public Theater.
Inspired by Robin D.G. Kelley’s Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression, Wallace’s two-act play borrows the untold part of history as a springboard for a parable of human nature rather than to make any political point.
The main character, Tice Hogan, is a black, out-of-work Sunday school teacher and leader of a Communist Party unit in Birmingham, Alabama. He spends most of his time studying the two books he owns: the Bible and Manifesto of the Communist Party. Hogan lives with his widowed daughter Cali, a hardened cynic who likes to steal rich people’s shoes and doesn’t care about politics. When a stranger shows up on their doorstep and blackmails Tice into letting him stay for a week, the dynamic in the household begins to change.
SYNOPSIS:
Set in Depression-era Alabama, Things of Dry Hours tells the story of Tice Hogan (Delroy Lindo), an African American out-of-work Sunday school teacher and member of the Communist Party, and his daughter Cali (Roslyn Ruff) whose lives get turned upside down when they take in a mysterious white factory worker (Garret Dillahunt) on the run.
WRITTEN BY: Naomi Wallace
DIRECTED BY: Ruben Santiago-Hudson
CAST:
Garret Dillahunt (Corbin Teel), Delroy Lindo (Tice Hogan), Roslyn Ruff (Cali Hogan)
THINGS OF DRY HOURS – IMAGE GALLERY
OFFICIAL PAGE: Things of Dry Hours
Things of Dry Hours opened on June 8 and ran through June 28, 2009, at the New York Theatre Workshop.
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