What to Send Up When It Goes Down

A play-ritual-celebration created by, for, and about Black people

If you’re a lover of theater, looking for signs of fresh and original and in-the-moment life on the American stage, you need to see What to Send Up.

The New York Times

What to Send Up When It Goes Down is a play-pageant-ritual-homegoing celebration in response to the physical and spiritual deaths of Black people as a result of racialized violence. As lines between characters and actors, observers and observed blur, a dizzying series of vignettes build to a climactic moment where performance and reality collide. Meant to disrupt the pervasiveness of anti-blackness and acknowledge the resilience of Black people throughout history, this theatrical work uses parody, song, movement, and audience participation to create a space for catharsis, reflection, cleansing, and healing.

Written by Aleshea Harris
Directed by Whitney White

Production Sponsor
Hutchins Center for African & African American Research at Harvard University

The Love Drive

In conjunction with this production of What to Send Up When It Goes Down, The Love Drive invites people from all walks of life to write a love letter to Black people living in this anti-Black society. Please know that there is no right or wrong, write from love and it will be received with love.

The letters collected will become part of an archive of The Love Drive and integrated into the scenic design of the show at Hibernian Hall in Boston and the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge. The letters will then travel with the play as it tours to New York, where The Love Drive will continue.

Letters can be written and dropped off at:

• Boston Public Library Egleston Square Branch
• Boston Public Lirbary Honan-Allston Branch
• Somerville Public Library Central Library
• Cambridge Women’s Center
• Hibernian Hall
• The Ex at the Loeb Drama Center

A little love goes a long way, and we hope that you will consider writing a letter to join this collective effort to bring healing through the arts.

Special Thanks

RoAnn Costin, The Front Porch Arts Collective, New Georges, Devonne Pitts

This production was supported and originally remounted by the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, the American Repertory Theater at Harvard University and the Public Theater.

What to Send Up When It Goes Down was originally produced by The Movement Theatre Company at the A.R.T./New York Theatres in the Jeffrey & Paula Gural Theatre.

What to Send Up When It Goes Down is presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc., a Concord Theatricals Company.