By Lynn Nottage

Choreographer Kirven Douthit-Boyd

Scenic Designer You-Shin Chen

Costume Designer Helen Q. Huang

Lighting Designer Jasmine Lesane

Composer and Sound Designer Avi Amon

Dialect Coach (Vietnamese, Chinese) Julie Foh

Dialect Coach (Kenyan, Somalian, Tanzanian) Barbara Rubin

Casting by X Casting, Victor Vazquez, CSA

Assistant director Aria Velz

Associate Costume Designer Madison Booth

Associate lighting Designer Natali Arco

Stage Manager Shannon B. Sturgis*

Assistant Stage Manager R. Christopher Maxwell*

Production assistant Sammie Haas

Director’s Note

As artists, we are often tasked with examining our shared human experiences to help others imagine, dream and heal during a time of global crisis. Directing this show allowed me to dig deep into my own personal history, where as a child I would listen to the stories of my grandmother and other village elders throughout Kenya’s Nandi Hills. My community planted the seed of storytelling in my soul, and I am so grateful to everyone who has helped that seed blossom. The Rep’s cast and crew – from all over the world – has created a production that brings to life the majestic gestures and expressive faces of my Motherland and beyond, as it boldly exposes the social issues that come with the greed of human desire in our global economy. This is Mlima’s Tale: a ghost story, but one that is neither phantasmal nor transient. “Mlima” is the Kenyan-Kiswahili word for mountain. The set before you reconstructs this haunting world, our shared world, as a mountainous infrastructure of power. To re-engage with Nottage’s work amid contemporary manifestations of anti-Black white supremacy is to recognize that racial capitalism is a globalized, neo-colonial formation. This mountain incentivizes human cruelty and predatory transactions from its base to peak. The summit may at times appear “beautiful” and “pristine,” but let us be clear – it is no accident that the egregious brutalization of the natural world occurs exactly where societies all over have historically hunted and exploited Black people. It is easy to particularize Mlima’s tragedy to individual bad actors in Africa and Asia. But the reality of our current world order, formed from the implementation and derivation of anti-Black chattel slavery, implicates all of us. The animalization of Blackness is a common parasitic relationship throughout our diverse ecosystems of globalized white supremacy, one that feeds off unsustainable extraction and outsourced exploitation. Nottage, with Brechtian elegance, defamiliarizes us from the dehumanizing costs of our sanitized, aspirational desires. I revel in her nuanced and multidimensional portrayals and encourage you to laugh, smile, and celebrate whenever possible. We are so blessed to be able share this space with you and commune over Nottage’s incisive writing. Ultimately, Mlima’s Tale challenges us to imagine what else our world could be. What kind of mountain do you wish to summit? How do we design and build infrastructures that truly empower everyone to climb? Should altitude even factor into the barometer of human dignity? Welcome and Karibu! Thank you for taking this time to learn and reflect with us.