Do Lord remember me

'Do Lord Remember Me,' directed by Roberta Uno, focuses on the memories of former slaves in Virginia. John De Jongh's play was the perfect vehicle to bring together theater and music, with the collaboration of UMASS music professor Horace Boyer, and the participation of cast members from the community in Amherst. The memories of ex-slaves recorded in interviews in the 1930's constitute the raw material of this theater piece. The lines and dialogue of this play are the words of black men and women in their eighties and nineties, who remember their experience of the 'peculiar institution' as it happened to them nearly a lifetime ago. Characters in the play adopt different personalities, telling the stories/histories of other slaves' experiences, and expressing the oppressions of serving in the military, inter-racial relationships, and the black/white social power dynamic. Among these horrors, faith sustained them and infused their desire for survival, always holding the promise that in the future they will be free: 'On my way to heaven, Lord remember me ... do Lord, do Lord, do Lord remember me.'

From 1979-2009, the New WORLD Theater worked at the intersection of artistic practice, community engagement, scholarship, and activism toward a vision of a 'new world' - one that broke the confines of multiculturalism and was an artistic harbinger of America's shifting demographics. From a geographic 'outpost' in New England, New WORLD Theater evolved from a community organizing project and the Northeast point on a theater touring compass, to a protective studio to hone new work, a site of international intersections from South Africa to the South Bronx, and the home of inspired and rigorous collaborations with Western Massachusetts youth. New performance work development at New WORLD defied the conventional theater play lab as ghetto for artists of color; artists were met where they wanted to be in the imagining of new approaches, methods, and production. One of New WORLD Theater's artistic legacies is Project 2050, an early call to imagine the U.S. demographic shift, with people of the future - youth, in equal collaboration with artists and scholars.