In “Crowns,” opening Friday at Arrow Street Arts, hats are a springboard for an exploration of Black history and identity.
Yolanda (Mirrorajah Metcalfe), a young Black woman from Brooklyn, New York, is sent by her mother to stay with her aunt in South Carolina after her brother is killed. For Yolanda’s older Southern Black relatives, hats are everything, and each comes with their own need and occasion – there are hats for flirting, for funerals, for churchgoing and for baptisms.
When director Regine Vital read the script for “Crowns” for Moonbox Productions, she “immediately knew these women.”
“The church lady is iconic in Black culture,” Vital said. “You either know a church lady or you’re somehow attached to a church lady.”
Playwright Regina Taylor based the play on a book by photographers Michael Cunningham and Craig Marberry called “Crowns: Portraits of Black Women in Church Hats.” Vital recalled sitting in the front pew of church when she was a child visiting her grandmother, surrounded by other Black women in their church hats.
“I have never forgotten that image of these amazing women, all wearing their hats,” Vital said.
When Yolanda arrives in South Carolina, her grandmother takes her to church. A teenager in an unfamiliar place, she’s initially resistant, but begins spending time with a group of six older women who use their hats to tell her stories from their lives. As they trace the rich history of their hats, the cast, which includes Mildred Walker, Cortlandt Barrett, Lovely Hoffman, Kaedon Gray and Aliyah Harris, helps Yolanda come to terms with her multifaceted identity.
“She’s just lost her brother, her best friend, and what she needs is community to let her know she’s not alone and that she will get through the hard times,” Vital said. “It’s through hearing their stories that she’s able to begin to see that maybe this isn’t the end of everything, that she can make it to the other side.”
The story is underscored mostly by gospel music, some of it arranged by music director David Coleman to have a more jazzlike feel, with rap and hip-hop mixed in.
“This is an intergenerational story, and I think the hip-hop alongside the gospel and jazz is a way of expressing that,” Vital said.
As it does for all its shows, Moonbox will support a local nonprofit during the run of “Crowns.” Rosie’s Place, founded in 1974 as the first women-only shelter in the United States, continues to provide meals, shelter and wide-ranging support, including help navigating housing and education services, for 12,000 women a year.
“It’s an organization that really puts women at the forefront, which is what we’re doing with the play,” Vital said.
“Crowns” runs Friday to May 4 at Arrow Street Arts, 2 Arrow St., Harvard Square, Cambridge. $25 to $55, with pay-what-you-wish options available while supplies last.
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