The Public Theater will present the world premiere of Cullud Wattah, written by Erika Dickerson-Despenza and directed by Candis C. Jones. Cullud Wattah tickets will be available soon.
Cullud Wattah is a play centered on three generations of Black women facing the Flint, Michigan water contamination crisis. Marion is a third-generation General Motors employee dealing with layoffs, and her sister, Ainee, is seeking restitution for lead poisoning. The women must confront the toxic relationship between their city and its industry, and what to do now that their contaminated society has sharply limited their family's options for a flourishing life.
Dickerson-Despenza wrote Cullud Wattah as a 2019-2020 Playwright in Residence at the Public and was meant to debut the play in the same season before the pandemic postponed programming. Cullud Wattah went on to win the 2019 Princess Grace Award and the 2021 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, all before the play even made its professional premiere. Cullud Wattah marks Dickerson-Despenza's second collaboration with director Candis C. Jones following the audio play shadow/land, which premiered digitally with the Public in spring 2021.
Performances are staged at the Public's Martinson Theater.
Check back to see when tickets to Cullud Wattah off Broadway will be on sale.
