by Ed Simpson
Directed by Doug Brown and Ken Elston

There will be a livestream of this performance on Sunday, April 10. Please visit www.highpoint.edu/theater/streaming to sign up for it.

When a powerful event hits a community, we often only experience it through the eyes of those directly involved. Such an event occurred in Greensboro, NC in 1960 when 4 young men from A&T University sat at the "Whites Only" dining counter at the downtown Woolworths. This small act of defiance started a movement that would spread throughout the country and become a key catalyst in the Civil Rights movement. But Periphery, written by Ed Simpson, is not about the central figures in this drama but rather, as the title implies, focuses on the citizens of Greensboro and students from local colleges who were impacted by this event. This play explores multiple perspectives of the cultural divide from both the Black and White communities. The events from 1960 echo loudly with the recent events that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement of today. The production of this play is a result of that movement.

Since June of 2020 Theater Department Chairs from 8 local triad colleges have been working together to create a festival of plays that focus on this movement. Recently, this consortium of Theater departments received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to assist in the fruition of this festival. Each week, during the month of April, a different play will be performed at 4 different universities:

Mend A City: The Movement at Bennett College April 8-10

Periphery at High Point University April 10-13

Nick and the Prizefighter at UNCG April 22-24

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at A&T University on April 28-May 1

More information on Amplify: Black Voices Festival of Greater Greensboro can be found here: https://gsotheaterconsortium.com/

April 10 through 13 at 7:30pm
Pauline Theater in Hayworth Fine Arts Center

Click here to view the trailer: https://youtu.be/N8UjCTznWYc