From 1936 to 1938, the federal government collected the stories of formerly enslaved people in 17 states as part of the Works Progress Administration.
Often referred to as the WPA Slave Narrative Collection, the effort resulted in 2,000 interviews and contains invaluable insights into African American life during the period of slavery.
This trove of interviews partially inspired “Out the Mud,” Kristen Adele Calhoun’s new play. Set on a plantation in Galveston, Texas, the play takes place on Juneteenth, 1865 — the date when Major General Gordon Granger ordered the final enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation in Texas — as a formerly enslaved couple contemplates their newfound freedom after their former enslavers offer to pay them to work the land.
The developmental premiere of Calhoun’s play begins tonight at the Firehouse Theatre. Directed by Chuck Mike, this production stars local actress Katrinah Carol Lewis as Sweet Fullilove and New York-based actor Jaylen D. Eashmond as Haywood Way.
“Both of them have traumas that they have endured apart and together, and they find out that freedom has come,” explains Lewis of Sweet and Haywood. “They have some really important decisions to make. Do they stay where they’ve been their whole lives and trust this offer of pay from their former enslavers who have never given them any reason to trust them?”
As Lewis notes, while emancipation may have meant freedom from chattel slavery, it was no guarantee of safety or employment. The couple’s decision is complicated by the fact that Sweet’s three living children were sold off and she wants to find them.
“[The couple is] deeply in love, but deeply scared because of the situation that they find themselves in,” says Lewis, who is also the Firehouse’s associate artistic director. “They have conflicting needs and desires.”
A Dallas native, playwright Kristen Adele Calhoun currently lives in Oaxaca, Mexico, but came to Richmond to be part of the process of getting the show on its feet.
“For me, it’s really a love story about how Black people in the past, and in the present, and in the future love one another, despite the unthinkable challenges that we’ve seen here in the U.S.,” says Calhoun of the play. “Is it possible for us to reclaim tenderness after the brutalities of enslavement?”
Calhoun began writing the script while living in Ghana. While there, she says she observed “a level of tenderness between parents, between people in romantic and platonic relationships too, that I didn’t see on this side of the Atlantic.”
She invokes Sankofa, the Ghanaian concept of returning and reclaiming what has been taken.
“How do we go back for love?” Calhoun asks. “How do we go back and get it?”
The Firehouse came across Calhoun’s script as part of her submission for the John Mitchell Jr. Commission. Sponsored by the theater and the Virginia Museum of History and Culture, the effort aims to commission a work that honors the “fighting editor” of The Richmond Planet, an African American newspaper founded in 1882. Not only did Calhoun receive the commission, but the Firehouse decided to stage “Out the Mud” as well.
“She’s just a very warm and bright artist,” says Lewis of Calhoun. “Her energy was really lovely. She’s just an incredibly brilliant and competent woman.”
Having recently retired from the University of Richmond, director Chuck Mike admits that he was initially reluctant to add another project to his plate. At Lewis’ goading, he took a look at the script and immediately recognized Calhoun’s name from having worked with her at the Carmargo Foundation’s Cultural Diaspora residency in Cassis, France. After reading the script, Mike realized he had to direct it.
“It speaks to Black intimacy under the shadow of bondage,” says Mike, an internationally renowned director, playmaker and educator who has staged work in Nigeria, London and The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “What does tenderness look like when your body has been commodified?”
Mike lauds Calhoun’s handiwork.
“The script is clever, it’s highly imaginative and passionately evoked,” he says. “Do they stay on their master’s plantation with the promise of pay or brave the unknown with no resources in a harsh world that’s not accustomed to free Black people? It proves to be a test of survival, but also a test of the love that they have for one another.”
Calhoun recently submitted a first draft for the John Mitchell Jr. play, which will receive a full staging by the Firehouse in 2027. She also recently served on the writing team for the film “BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions,” Kahlil Joseph’s 2025 directorial debut.
“Come see a love story unlike any other love story you’ve ever seen,” says Calhoun of “Out the Mud.” “Come and laugh with us. Come be provoked, and maybe a little undone, a little unmoored by what you thought you knew about this point in history.”
“Out the Mud” plays March 13-29 at the Firehouse Theatre, 1609 W. Broad St. For more information visit firehousetheatre.org or call 804-355-2001.
