‘We’re intentional’: B Street Theatre launches social justice web series Re-Imagine

When Danielle Truitt acted in a production of “The Mountaintop,” someone asked her why the theater was performing it in March, rather than in February. The play depicts Martin Luther King Jr.’s last night on earth. So, they reasoned, shouldn’t it happen during Black History Month?

Truitt, a 15-year company member of Sacramento’s B Street Theatre, recalled her response: “Because we can talk about Black people any day of the year.”

“Like there’s only Black people alive from February 1 to February 28,” added Jerry Montoya, executive producer at B Street. “Then you just disappear.”

To the Sacramentans, this incident illuminates the theater community’s failure to amplify Black voices. And through the creation of B Street’s new social justice web series, Re-Imagine, they’re trying to change that.

Every Tuesday since July 14, B Street has held a Zoom performance featuring Sacramento artists of color. The series includes a variety of art forms, from plays to poetry to music; its vision is to host theatrical experiences, “By us. For EVERYONE.” The next installment, on Tuesday, July 28, is titled Storytell(HER) and will showcase the work of Black woman writers.

“Art really reflects the reality of any given situation,” said Montoya. Theatre, in turn, has reflected the systemic oppression of Black Americans, in both the stories that it tells and the “white, suburban and affluent” audiences that it attracts.

Works by artists of color hardly ever receive the funding or platform necessary to achieve widespread success, according to Truitt. There are a few Black plays deemed acceptable to perform, like “A Raisin in The Sun,” but when it comes to new voices discussing modern issues, “A lot of theater companies shy away from it. They’re afraid of it,” she said. “They’re worried about people running off.”

B Street — a fixture of Sacramento’s theater scene since 1986 — has said it’s a part of the problem. In a statement released after the death of George Floyd, it said, “It is no longer enough to sit passive and feel comforted in the knowledge that we are progressive.” A follow-up statement referenced B Street’s “predominantly white community;” Truitt mentioned she was one of the theater’s only Black company members.

But right now, “The American theater is going through a reckoning, from top to bottom,” said Montoya. “There’s no other way to put that.”

In addition to Re-Imagine, B Street has also appointed Latrice Madkins to the new position of equity, diversity, and community inclusion director. Madkins said she’s “in everything now” — working on Re-Imagine, researching the demographics of Sacramento, and ultimately, collaborating with and providing insights to every department in the theater.

“We’re intentional,” said Madkins. “Everything now is looking at where we are internally. How are we going to make sure that we remain on top? It’s by being intentional and continuing this type of programming.”

While the pursuit of racial justice at B Street is ongoing, Re-Imagine is the perfect starting point — even by virtue of its name, said Truitt.

“The theater is a place where we get to use our imaginations, where artists come together to create a world for the audience to experience,” said Truitt. “But we lose sight that we can also imagine our country and our communities being better than they are. When we take what we have, and then reimagine it to be what we always dreamed it could be, it opens us up to real change.”