Playwright Christina Anderson’s the ripple, the wave that carried me home educates KC audiences on the history of integration

Courtesy photo KC Repertory Theatre

Kansas City, Kansas, native and Tony-nominated playwright Christina Anderson is producing her play the ripple, the wave that carried me home this spring in Kansas City. The show has toured theatres across the country, and it will grace the stages of the Kansas City Repertory Theatre March 14 through April 2 in a production directed by Khanisha Foster.

A plot synopsis is provided in a press release from KC Repertory Theater: “Janice’s parents are prominent activists fighting for the integration of public swimming pools in 1960s Kansas. As injustice penetrates the warm bubble of her childhood, Janice grows apart from her family and starts a new life far away. When she receives a call asking her to speak at a ceremony honoring her father, she must decide whether she’s ready to reckon with her political inheritance and a past she has tried to forget. A deeply moving story about justice, legacy, memory, and the ultimate challenge of forgiveness.”

After its tenure on the KC Rep Copaken stage, the show will tour the bi-state metro community from April 6-16 in a series of free and open-to-the-public shows produced in libraries, schools, community centers, and non-profit organization spaces as part of the KCRep for All program.

“KCRep for All breaks down economic and geographic barriers and makes theatre walls more permeable as KCRep travels across Kansas City to meet people in their communities. This program is inspired by The Old Globe’s Globe for All program in San Diego. This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts,” says a press release from KC Rep.

The playwright, Christina Anderson, is excited to see her work produced in her hometown. She sat down for an interview with The Pitch staff about her process of writing the play and what it’s like seeing it tour her old stomping grounds.

“I knew I wanted to write about water in some capacity, so I was reading a bunch of books on water, watching a lot of documentaries, and reading fiction looking at environmental justice,” says Anderson. “And then I came across this book called Contested Waters, which looked at the history of public pools in America. And, you know, I don’t know how to swim. And it just never really occurred to me that any kind of social or policy or segregation could play a part in that. So that’s when I knew that the play was going to be about swimming.”

Writing the play from the point of view of a child was important to Anderson, as well.

“I’ve always been really interested in the children of activists, like MLK’s children and Malcolm X’s kids. I have a couple of friends whose parents were Black Panthers,” says Anderson. “So I’ve always been interested in someone doing that level of important and necessary work; what kind of sacrifices or challenges or obstacles does it create in their immediate families?”

“I’m very interested in Black women doing direct address with an audience,” Anderson continues. “When I was in high school at Schlegel and Barstow, I was on the forensics team. I did a humorous solo contemporary performance. Even as a teenager, I was interested in speaking directly to my audience as a performer. So when ripple came about, and I started writing it, Janice’s voices started to come to me as a monologue.”

Writing the play has been extremely rewarding for Anderson, especially now seeing the play brought to her home community. However, the creative process did not come without its challenges.

“My greatest challenge was just trying to figure out how to capture the story in such a limited amount of time because I was really interested in it being around 90 minutes. I wasn’t interested in a two-act piece, but I knew I wanted to capture the history of this fictitious town,” says Anderson. “So the challenge was squeezing the epic into a little square.”

Next in Anderson’s playwright career is an adaptation of Zora Neale Hurston’s Barracuda, which Anderson says she is doing on commission with the Public Theater of New York. Workshops on the first draft will begin this summer.

Tickets to ripple, the wave that carried me home at the Kansas City Repertory Theater Copaken Stage can be reserved online. The full schedule for the free community tour through the KCRepforAll program can also be found on the KC Rep website.