UPDATE: This production has been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Public Theater concludes its 2019-2020 Off-Broadway season with the world premiere of Cullud Wattah, written by Erika Dickerson-Despenza and directed by Candis C. Jones.
Performances are staged at the Public's LuEsther Hall.
Cullud Wattah is a new Afro-surrealist play about three generations of Black women living through the current water crisis in Flint, Michigan. It’s been 936 days since Flint has had clean water. Marion, a third generation General Motors employee, is consumed by layoffs at the engine plant. When her sister, Ainee, seeks justice and restitution for lead poisoning, her plan reveals the toxic entanglements between the city and its most powerful industry, forcing their family to confront the past-present-future cost of survival. As lead seeps into their home and their bodies, corrosive memories and secrets rise among them. Will this family ever be able to filter out the truth? Cullud Wattah blends form and bends time, diving deep into the poisonous choices of the outside world, the contamination within, and how we make the best choices for our families’ future when there are no real, present options.