Event

NATIVE GUARD

History and memory collide in this theatrical staging of Pulitzer Prize winner and 19th U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey's searing poetry.
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry, former U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheweys Native Guard will be staged for the second time in this special west coast premiere at Sage Hill School. Native Guard juxtaposes the deeply personal experiences of Trethewey, a child of a then-illegal marriage between her black mother and white father living in 1960s Mississippi, with the experience of a soldier in the Native Guard, the first African-American Union troop in the Civil War, who was charged with guarding white Confederate captives. Years after her mother's tragic death, Trethewey reclaims her memory, just as she reclaims the voices of the black soldiers whose service has been all but forgotten. Join us for Act IIa participatory experience hosted by community leaders and cast. In the second act of NATIVE GUARD audience members will be invited to participate in a discussion about the play they have just experienced, giving voice to their thoughts in the same space that just inspired them.