Dates & Times

Here are some resources that expand on the importance of this play and its message. There are also some helpful articles on explaining race and racism to your children, how to be a better ally to Black people and POC, and some articles that will encourage you to challenge the way you think about racial relations in this country today.

Raising American Son – A Discussion Guide

How to Talk About Race with Your Kid by Melanie Pinola

A Conversation with My Black Son

The Conversation Black Parents Have With Their Kids About Cops by Rheana Murray

A Conversation With Black Women About Race by Joe Brewster and Michele Stephenson

A Conversation With Police About Race by Geeta Gandbhir and Perri Peltz

#TalkAboutTrayvon by BlackLivesMatter

Imagining Abolition Series by BlackLivesMatter

Some Organizations to support

BlackLivesMatter

ACLU Colorado

The Second Tuesday Race Forum

Black Lives Matter 5280

The Denver Justice Project

SURJ Denver

Soul2Soul Sisters

Race Talk University

Creative Strategies for Change

Curious Theatre Company  and The Denver Public Library recommends these library resources to enhance your theatre experience of AMERICAN SON!

READ

Rest in Power by Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin

Treyvon Martin’s parents tell an intimate story of their beloved son’s life and the aftermath that captivated the country. Like Jamal, Treyvon lived in Florida with divorced parents and was on the brink of adulthood. Martin’s parents share every detail, writing in alternate chapters, as they lived a parent’s worst nightmare on the public stage, which morphed into a cause. 

WATCH 

Think of Calvin, dir. Kelly Amis (2016)

Calvin asked why police wanted his 15-year-old son, who had been riding around the neighborhood on a tricycle. The outsized police response and Calvin’s arrest was captured on video and turned into this short documentary that reveals how stop-and-frisk can escalate. Stream it on Kanopy, free to all Denver residents with your library card.

LISTEN 

The Hate U Give Soundtrack, Various artists (2018)

After witnessing her friend’s death at the hands of a police officer, Starr Carter’s life is complicated when the police and a local drug lord try to intimidate her in an effort to learn what happened the night Kahlil died. Adapted into an emotional rollercoaster ride of a movie, the soundtrack successfully sets the stage featuring 2Pac, Kendrick Lamar, and more.

DOWNLOAD

What Ever Happened to Interracial Love by Kathleen Collins

These short stories, discovered only recently, highlight Collins’s masterfully blend of the personal issues– race, gender, family, and sexuality– with the ordinary moments that shape our lives. Also known as an artist and filmmaker, her stories create full-bodied men, women, and children who justify their lives while integrating the African American experience without becoming symbols or token images.

In Media

• Curious Theatre explores POC experience with police in “American Son”

  by Lisa Kennedy

  The Curious cast is auspicious. Josh Robinson portrays Kendra’s estranged husband, Scott Connor. The play throws a shiny wrench into the works by making Connor an FBI agent. Sean Scrutchins is the young police officer, Paul Larkin, who is Kendra’s first point of contact in the wee hours. In the script, the quick devolution of their interactions says as much about the loneliness of parental anguish as it does the galling flaws of policing. As police Lt. John Stokes, Abner Genece arrives to upend any easy assumptions that may be left standing. The exchanges between Stokes and Kendra may prove the most painful — and the most powerful. “American Son” singes. It bruises. It exposes barely scabbed scars. It’s hard to heal when the culture consistently digs into the wound. There has been an uptick in wise (and overdue) conversations among creatives about the value but also pitfalls of popular works that continue to depict Black trauma — especially when the actual events that precipitate trauma continue, seemingly unabated. The deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd in 2020 provide stark examples of that violent reiteration of systemic vulnerability. Into this fraught space treads “American Son.”The demands of that are in many ways what Curious is about. “It’s often very challenging to find a play that tackles an important issue and includes a certain level of humanity,” Walton said. “And this play has what I think is a very, very humanistic story about two parents of a son, and an incredibly provocative story about race in the United States. In my opinion, it’s neither didactic or preachy about an issue, nor is it sort of sentimental or melodramatic.”