InterAct Theatre Company presents Phaedra Michelle Scott’s Plantation Black

Historic echoes

Scott’s nuanced storytelling is even more impressive. According to the program notes, the play’s structure is intended to portray history repeating itself and the surprises often hidden in historical accounts, both personal and national. The concept of a white family and a Black family discovering common ancestors works well—true stories of this still make news, like 2025’s CNN report “A Family in Black and White.” Plantation Black swings big, incorporating the racial, economic, cultural, and political divisions of the 1860s and the 21st century. It hits both well-known and less familiar historical notes, from a plantation ruled by a feckless draft dodger to a woman who secretly takes on a man’s identity. (An unknown number of women fought as men during the Civil War, and some published accounts of their experiences.) Meanwhile, the play also incorporates current topics including virtue signaling, cancel culture, and white fragility.

Dramatic transformations

Plantation Black largely achieves these risky and courageous ambitions. Strong performances highlight the stark differences and similarities between past and present. As Big Mom, Lenny Daniels plays a matriarch who serves as the narrator. Her role remains consistent to highlight static cultural expectations of African American women. In contrast, Trevor William Fayle, Tymothee Harrell, Eli Lynn, Hannah Parke, and DeAnna Supplee play vastly different characters in the play’s two timelines. All deftly switch between roles and time periods, with Harrell playing an enslaved man and a famous photographer, Parke a Southern belle and a boss bitch, and Lynn genderful characters in distinct eras.

Fayle and Supplee make especially dramatic transformations. Fayle plays two men named Davis Prioleau, one an evil-doer and the other a self-identified “good guy.” Entitled and lascivious, Davis the Fourth stumbles around drunk, while mild-mannered Davis the Eighth geeks out on photography. And Supplee disappears into her roles as Morning, an enslaved woman whose actions are crucial to the plot, and Tasha, an attorney fighting to keep Black families on land they occupied for generations. It was the best surprise I’ve had at the theater so far this year.

A home for fresh, interesting work

Costumes by Leigh Paradise help establish the characters, Dahlia Al-Habeili’s set transforms the stage into the Loch Dhu Plantation, and lighting designer Shannon Zura visually cues the temporal shifts. Kimille Howard’s effective direction keeps the audience from getting lost in the timeline, despite its non-linearity and the unpredictability introduced by the raffle. Curious how the raffle changes the performance? InterAct offers a discount on return tickets to see the play begin at a different point in the timeline, though there are no guarantees.

On opening night, the raffle drawing resulted in a powerful closing scene that reinforced the lack of simple solutions to complex American conflicts. At two hours without intermission, Plantation Black feels a little too long. Scenes set in the 1860s progress at an antique pace. But this is a sacrifice worth making for an inventive and nuanced approach to issues that have haunted our country for centuries. A commitment to new plays at InterAct brings opportunities for fresh, interesting work. This pays off with Plantation Black, and Scott is a playwright to watch.