Playwright Inda Craig-Galván talks Black theater in Chicago, with 2 of her works on stage now
It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the humor and seriousness of Congo Square Theatre’s latest play, “Welcome to Matteson,” that one can miss the plot twist in the production. One that will really make one think. There’s a plot twist in Den Theatre’s “A Hit Dog Will Holler” as well. Both works are from the mind of Inda Craig-Galván, a native of the Jeffery Manor neighborhood.
Where the former play examines issues of housing injustice, the “not in my backyard” mentality and classism, the latter looks at the relationship between two Black women in the current political/pandemic landscape of activism and social media influencers. Issues of mental health, racism, fear, authenticity and survival as a Black woman in America exist in “A Hit Dog Will Holler.” Meanwhile, “Welcome to Matteson,” is based on the south suburban locale and what happened when Cabrini-Green came down and its residents were relocated to the predominantly Black village.
And it all started thanks to one of Craig-Galván’s best friends, whose family lived in Matteson when they were in college. Her friend bought a home in the nearby village of Park Forest, and Craig-Galván and her husband followed suit.
“We bought a house in Park Forest in the early 2000s,” Craig-Galván said. “Our goal was to eventually sell that house and buy a house either in Homewood or Matteson. But things happened, including the bubble bursting in the housing market. So we ended up moving to Los Angeles.”
Craig-Galván recalls really loving the area, a small community that wanted integration and had resources for residents, and where people took care of and cared for where they lived. “I was close enough to the city to do all the fun Chicago things and far enough away that I felt like I was in a little town,” she said. The first draft of “Welcome to Matteson” was born the last year Craig-Galván was at the University of Southern California School of Dramatic Arts Dramatic Writing Master of Fine Arts program.
“Most of my plays are set in Chicago because that’s where I’m from,” Craig-Galván said. “It just happened to be this confluence of events that I have two productions in Chicago about plays that take place in Chicago at the same time.”
We talk with Craig-Galván about her works on and offstage, her career and Black theater in Chicago. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: This play is based in Matteson, but will people get the reference when it plays around the country? Is Matteson any town in America?
A: I try to write really specific stories, stories that are affecting people I know or people I’ve been. And the more specific it is, somehow the more universal because it’s themes that everybody’s going through, and housing inequity has been happening everywhere. This very specific thing of relocating residents from Cabrini-Green to the south suburbs is specific to us, but there is still the idea of this reverse gentrification and people holding on very tightly to what their ideas of home and ownership are, and with all of the people unionizing and all the strikes happening, people realizing that no matter how much control you think you have in your own situation, there are people who make way more money off your labor and off your situation. So much so everybody is waking up and realizing we have got to change things because we aren’t controlling things. A lot of it is about money.
Q: You have two very different stories looking at aspects of our society, who are the audiences for the work?
A: I think there’s something that speaks to everybody ... the “look what happens when you do this.” I write primarily for Black audiences. I write what I want to see. So (“Welcome to Matteson”) is speaking to the Patricias and the Geralds, the bougie folks who are judging other people or dismissing other people. It’s to the Reginas and the Coreys who are still happy. They are the most uplifting people in this play, because they do not necessarily accept their fate, or their lot in life. But they find joy despite what everyone else thinks of them and whatever they have to go through, they’re still going to find a way to be happy and to love each other. So I think there’s a little something for everybody and I try not to blame or call anybody the bad guy, except Mayor Daley (laughs).
With “A Hit Dog Will Holler” there’s a similar element of judgment. And it’s when they hit this heightened emotion, that’s when that monster rears its ugly head and becomes real. Again, two very different people but they’re both Black, both living through the same time, living through it in very similar ways and having to deal with very similar trauma. And it affects all of us, unfortunately.
Q: Without giving away the endings, can you explain what the plot twists are signifying?
A: People who have no control. These people are living in a place, behaving the ways that they think are right or helpful or beneficial to them, but they’re struggling, they are challenged, they’re loving, they’re not so loving. But ultimately, everything is controlled by an outside force. That is our reality. We still have to be kind to one another, respectful and recognize that we’re all in this together no matter what our differences may be. We all have to be good to one another despite our lack of control.
Q: The Tribune’s Chris Jones recently wrote an article that looked at the theater scene in Chicago, do you have any thoughts about the landscape now?
A: There was one sentence that says there are success stories in theaters, bucking the trend. But we didn’t go into that in the article. We didn’t talk about eta or Congo Square Theatre. There was an article in American Theatre by Michael Bobbitt over two years ago, where he says boards (of directors) are broken. Do you have artists on your boards? Do you have people of color on your boards? Because boards have a lot of input. It’s not the problem that Black people don’t want to go see theater. We want to see ourselves and we want to see shows that speak to us. … It’s not the location that’s the problem. It’s the content that’s on the stages.
It’s also where the money is going. One thing that article said that I absolutely agree with was that you can still do theater without a brand new, big expensive building, but you can’t do it without artists. If artists don’t feel valued, if the new work that artists are creating isn’t valued and supported and given the resources and given all the support you would give a Shakespeare play, then those artists, where are they going to go? The artist isn’t the middleman, the artist is the first person and if you’re not dedicated to developing new work and then programming that new work, then you’re not going to have new exciting things for an audience to see.
A lot of theaters were doing a lot of development during the pandemic, and before, but if you’re not programming these plays that you’re doing readings of, then what’s the message you’re sending to the artists? I don’t know what the answer is because it’s happening everywhere, all across the country — theaters are canceling or shutting down, they’re limiting their seasons. But obviously people are going out, people are shelling out money for Beyonce, for Taylor Swift. People are going on vacation. People still spend money, but if you’re not showing them something that they want to come see, then it’s not necessarily about the tickets.
Q: Did you always want to be a playwright? You also write for ABC’s “Will Trent” show.
A: I’m excited to come back for a second season. We were renewed for a second season. We are in the middle of a labor movement right now, but we will be back. I was leery about working on another cop show because I didn’t want to write characters that were propaganda. This show came my way, I read the pilot and I loved it. I loved that this book series where most of the characters are white would be re-imagined for the TV series where we have so many people of color, who are authentically themselves. We have this Puerto Rican man in the lead, Ramon Rodriguez, whose character Will Trent is just learning about his own background. So we will get to delve into that more; his character is an orphan, a couple of the characters are, and dealing with what that meant, what happened after they got out of the system? What tools or resources were they given or not? How they continue to cope with life, those orphans who never got adopted, who never got a permanent home. And he also has dyslexia. There’s a lot of real specific things we’re dealing with in this show, it’s grounded and I love it.
I wanted to be an actor initially. I was acting in Chicago. A lot of times when I would work on new plays, I would have all these questions and notes. I think it was the dramatist in me trying to get out and trying to do some dramaturgy because I had stories in me that I figured out different ways to tell them than what was happening on the page. Then I started taking classes at Second City and started performing and writing sketch comedy. I thought that I only had about a five-minute sketch in me at most. But once I moved to Los Angeles, I still wanted to write. I didn’t have my sketch writing partner back in Chicago anymore. I thought how can I still express myself and create work that excites me and feels personal to me? Maybe I should just be a writer. So actor, then sketch comedy writer/performer and then playwright was the path, and then TV.
Now, I’m in a place where I’m on a show that I love, where I get to be real creative, pitch ideas and write the way that I write … my showrunners are great at saying yes and genuinely wanting everyone’s point of view in the room to be on that page. And now I’m developing shows myself, so I get to not have to compromise art in order to work in TV and that’s a luxury and probably the best move that I’ve made with getting away from things that I’m doing just for money and doing things that feel like art to me.
“A Hit Dog Will Holler” runs through Sept. 17 at the Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee; tickets are $25 at thedentheatre.com. “Welcome to Matteson” runs through Oct. 1 at Abbott Hall at Northwestern University Chicago Campus, 710 N. DuSable Lake Shore Drive; tickets are $45 at congosquaretheatre.org
