No Curtain Call for Justice in ‘Notes From the Field’

The lights dimmed in the Newhart Family Theatre as a hush fell over the audience. Above the stage, worn sneakers hung from the ceiling — a haunting reminder of the lives lost to an education system which never gave them a chance. 

“Notes from the Field,” directed by Deron Williams, is a play tied with the Black experience in education and an indictment of social programs that fail the most vulnerable.

From Feb. 13-23, two rotating casts, referred to as the Gold and Maroon teams, took on the challenge of telling stories drawn from real-life accounts of the school-to-prison pipeline. The production, originally a monologue by Anna Deavere Smith, took on new dimensions with added music and colorblind casting.

Williams said throughout the process of producing the show, the word “intentional” kept resurfacing. The audience’s discomfort was intentional. The raw, unfiltered footage of police brutality and news reporting featured in the play were intentional. The choice to have actors play different races and genders while speaking in a variety of accents was intentional. 

The performance began with a video of the murder of Freddie Gray, jars of soil from lynching sites courtesy of the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala. and a video about Shakara — a student pulled from her desk by her neck and thrown on the floor by a police officer because she used her phone during class, according to the Los Angeles Times. 

The entire production was designed to force a confrontation with reality, Williams said. Choreographer and movement director Tanji Harper said “Notes From the Field” isn’t a passive experience — it’s meant to challenge, disturb and impact the audience.

Williams and Harper said they added musicality to the show to further make the audience’s experience visceral. Harper said some attendees, especially the younger generation, don’t have the attention span to sit for two hours and process brutally retold stories. She said through music and dance, they can experience the story on a more visceral level.  

“People get uncomfortable in their seats when the mirror is held up to some of the things that they’ve either ignored or are clearly aware of and are cognitively dissonant about,” Harper said. “Your heart is also tugged because of the emotional pieces of the music that was chosen and the movement that was given.”

With colorblind casting, some white and Asian actors portray Black characters, which Harper said invited crowd engagement. Since the scenes were monologues, the actors spoke to the attendees directly. 

Harper pointed to Alex de Foy, a fourth-year economics major and member of the Gold cast, who played the roles of a psychiatrist and Bryan Stevenson — a lawyer and social justice advocate. Foy’s portrayal of two Black characters, explaining the history of lynching to the audience, left onlookers speechless, according to Harper.

“It changes the way that you receive the information, and especially if you hear it in the skin of somebody else,” Harper said. “Watching Alex portray a young Black male and speak in the vernacular that he used made everyone listen in a different way —  now they could see their son.”

Erinn Grendahl, a fourth-year theater major, was a member of the Maroon cast playing both a Black Pastor and a Congressman. Grendahl said it was an eye-opening experience to see the audience’s shaken reactions, with her being a white female depicting Black male characters.  

Gold cast member Jermaine Hayden, a Black student, played the same parts as Grendahl. Grendahl said relying on her team’s Black actors helped her overcome the challenge of playing characters not of her own race. 

“I argue there is no such thing as a colorblind casting, but rather, there is an intentional choice being made by either the creative director or their directive team,” Grendahl said. “It’s an examination of how people process the information, from a person of color or a character of color, coming from a person of color, versus, how do they understand it coming from a white person.” 

The production was also shaped by the political climate in which it was rehearsed. Jermaine Hayden, a first-year theater major, said he used the play to channel his anger following the 2024 election.  

“The day after the election was our first rehearsal,” Hayden said. “Everyone was very emotional and for me as an artist, I felt the best way that I could put my emotions in how I felt that our country is being dealt with into the art.”

With the new presidency, many marginalized groups found themselves under attack. This reality weighed heavily on the cast and they tried to portray that via the monologues delivered and the dances performed. 

Harper choreographed a number called “This is America,” and Hayden said the most powerful moment comes when all the actors collectively raise their hands in the air. The cast — some with no prior dance experience — had to learn together how to express struggle through movement. Hayden said the goal was to emphasize solidarity in every step.

Beyond rehearsing lines and practicing the dances, the cast used their time backstage to educate themselves. They dove into the history of ostracization in the education system, exploring how marginalized voices had been silenced for generations. The goal wasn’t just to perform — it was to understand.

Harper said the true understanding of these varied stories could only come from embodiment. It wasn’t enough to hear these stories or see them unfold from a distance — the cast had to live them.

“When you step into somebody else’s story and you have to tell it and live it or also express it, you will feel it differently than when it was just told to you or when you just see it happening,” Harper said. “We become so desensitized to the amount of violence that we see all over the place — we almost expect the bad.”

Awareness alone isn’t enough, according to Williams. He said his inclusion of a colorblind cast and real-life footage of police brutality and racism surrounding marginalized children challenges the crowd’s thinking. Williams said by seeing raw footage, viewers can sense the divide set up against marginalized communities is intentional and the information they have learned is false.

“Historically, we know that the easiest way to conquer anything is to divide people,” Williams said. “We don’t look any further about what is being stated that it makes it easy for us to bite each other, especially those who are underrepresented to fight against each other when the true attack is coming from those who are trying to maintain this white supremacist system.” 

Williams said there’s a difference between being an ally and being a co-conspirator. An ally is someone who stands behind the comfort of social justice, but a co-conspirator puts themselves on the front lines based on their privilege.

“We are where we are because we have too many allies and not enough co-conspirators,” Williams said. “People love to be comfortable in where they are situated. But you only become a co-conspirator when you’re willing to give up that place of comfort and step into that realm of discomfort.”

Williams said “Notes From the Field” makes people momentarily uncomfortable in their seats for two hours — but inspires discussion thereafter. 

Hayden said in addition to the conversations the show will spark, it also gives students a chance to remember the names of Black lives that were lost.  

“This show is not looking to the future, but looking to the past,” Hayden said. “A big part of the movement is to say their names, which is exactly what we’re doing. We are uplifting these people’s stories who were, unfortunately, murdered by the police and who faced a lot of injustice.”

“Notes From the Field” covers injustices over the span of two hours, but that wasn’t enough. Injustices are still happening especially in the current political turmoil around DEI initiatives. Williams said this is a time to learn and act on social justice outside the classroom. 

In addition to looking at the past, Williams said it’s important to consider present issues. At a time when debates over free speech dominate college campuses and public discourse, Williams said there’s a tension between the principle and the practice. 

“We’re in a system that talks about freedom of speech but really doesn’t respect freedom of speech at the same time,” Williams said. “Hopefully, by listening to this —  by seeing this — students gain a better understanding to be better people and to think beyond themselves and about all of those who are less fortunate.”