February is Black History Month, and in that spirit of celebration, I took my husband and my tween son to see Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea at The Peale Museum. The show is a production of Sisters Freehold, a theater group based in Baltimore, whose mission is to transform theater by eliminating barriers to entry. They aim to make theater that reflects the community it serves, and Dontrell, Who Kissed the Sea does just that.
Written by Nathan Alan Davis, and directed by Makeima Freeland, the show tells the story of Dontrell (Jaylen Henderson), a recent Baltimore high school graduate who is about to start his freshman year at Johns Hopkins University. Dontrell has started having dreams about an ancestor who died during the Middle Passage (the period between the 1500s and 1800s when enslaved Africans were brought to the Americas) and feels compelled to go find him. The show tracks his plan to find his long-lost relative with help from his cousin Shea (Joi Kai), who brings him a wetsuit and flippers from her National Aquarium job and support from his new lifeguard girlfriend (Autumn Koehnlein) who he meets when he jumps into the deep end of the pool where she works in preparation for his journey. His mother (Sha-Nel Henderson) is especially eager for him to avoid any distractions that will keep him from beginning his college journey and living up to his promise. Along the way, the show uses humor and honesty to depict Dontrell’s connection between his past, present, and future, interweaving realism and fantasy.
Baltimore’s Peale Museum is a theater-in-the-round, where the audience (which was diverse in both race and age on the night we saw it) is brought into the action as it happens on all sides of them, as the whole ensemble (which also includes Majenta Thomas, Maren Yolovia Wright-Kerr, and Jae Jones) creates really vivid images in an unconventional theater space. The play does include some profanity and sexual situations, and is best for tweens and up. It’s a beautiful piece of theater that inspired thoughtful conversations among my family on our way home. I highly recommend it!
Presented by Sisters Freehold at the Peale Museum
225 Holliday Street, Baltimore, MD 21202
Show runs from February 16-March 3, 2024
Tickets at https://www.sistersfreehold.org/dontrell
Recommended for ages 10 and Up
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