Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

In just a few weeks, the touring stage play Black Boys Cry is heading to Atlanta and with it goes Port Arthur resident and school board trustee Taylor Getwood.

The play, by Harold Jay Trotter and 1989 Dreams Productions, is described as a hilarious and compelling journey in the lives of five black men who “don’t necessarily experience black boy joy but have a strong commitment to get there. Rather than healing from childhood trauma, addition, abandonment, sex and sexuality, these men bond on brotherhood and strength,” according to the play description.

Getwood explains in the play, the men are each struggling with something that society says black men have to be.

“No man is perfect,” Getwood said, adding “imperfection is perfection.”

The play shows the inner struggles of the men, who bottle their true selves to fit into society’s idea of what a black man should be.
Getwood said it’s more than a serious play; it takes the audience on an emotional roller coaster to times of joy and laughter, then down to the heavy and make you drop to your knees but at the end you endure the ride.

The play has already been in Detroit, Dallas, Killen and is scheduled for Atlanta Dec. 9 and 10.

Next year the play is heading to Las Vegas and New York and a return to Houston. Getwood hopes to bring the play to Port Arthur, so students in the city can see the play, as well.

He would like for students in the district to see the play, adding there is a message to be shared.

“There are men just like these five men who walk among us and they definitely need to hear how to set themselves free,” he said.

The biggest lesson to learn in the play is “we are who are, and we have to be proud of it.”

“Especially as a black male,” he said. “In this country, you always have what you’re supposed to be, but it’s not going to be your full potential until you can be who you were made to be, created to be, destined to be.”

The cast includes Taylor Getwood as Torion, Quincy Lovings as Magic, Brad Cross as Craig, Robert Richard as Zach, and Ahz Moses as Ronnie.

For ticket information go to 1989dreams.com/tickets.