Feature Mon Nov 02 2009

Dreams Deferred: an Interview with Messiah Equiano

It is no secret that Chicago has experienced a major upsurge in youth violence; recently, I sat down with Messiah Equiano, filmmaker and founder of Operation Safe Passage, to find out what he and his organization are doing to address this issue.

Tell me about Operation Safe Passage.

Messiah Equiano: Operation Safe Passage was incorporated in June 2009. I'm also a filmmaker, and I did a documentary about a little girl who was killed in the Englewood neighborhood at her own birthday party. I've been following this youth violence issue for about three years now, which obviously, is continuing to be a problem, especially with hundreds of young people having been shot in Chicago the last two years. Seeing this devastation, I wanted to be a solution to the problem. I would see marches, rallies, etc., but in my opinion, with this generation, those things weren't necessarily working.

You came up with the idea to address this ugly reality through the theatre -- how do you hope to connect to youth in ways the marches and rallies have not?

No offense to anyone, but I wanted to try to reach them differently -- through scholarships, mentoring programs, and life-changing media productions, which is what drove my decision to write a stage play, Dreams Deferred. Also, people like to be entertained, so I wanted to create a message through entertainment.

In an "infotainment" sort of way?

Exactly.

On your website, you say: "An entire generation is at stake." With the murder of Derrion Albert and most recently the McClendon murders, Chicago has been in the headlines a lot lately. With regard to the murders, what do you think is missing? Are we [adults] dropping the ball somewhere?

It starts in the home; if everyone who brings a child in the world takes care of his/her responsibility, there would be a lot less of this; however, other factors including poverty, unemployment, and drug abuse, create a cesspool, too.

To see those ills everyday, they think, "No one cares."

"No one cares. I don't care about myself or my surroundings so why should I care about you?"

Let's talk about Dreams Deferred.

Dreams Deferred is my first stage play and it has all Chicago actors and actresses in it. The idea came from one day when I was watching my documentary, Nugget: One of the mothers, whose daughter was killed, mentioned that she was a "straight-A" student who wanted to become a doctor. It was such a loss to society; I mean, we don't know what she could've done with her life. Then, a bell rang in my head and I thought to myself, "Wow, what if Barack Obama had gotten killed by a stray bullet" and "What if I wrote a play that shows this so people can really see the long-term effects of this violence?"

And an idea was born.

Yes. I wrote the script, got suggestions from some of my "theater" friends of mine, revised it, held auditions and here we are!

What can you tell us about the play?

The play has three central characters because I feel there are three kinds of people in the world: The person who knows where he or she is going in life, the one who knows where he or she is going in life, but might stray towards the "in" crowd, and finally, the one who is just totally lost.

Hence the title.

Yes. Without giving away too much, you'll see why it's called Dreams Deferred.

What's next?

We are looking to make Dreams Deferred into a feature film. We hope to start shooting around the first of the year and take it globally. After all, this violence isn't just a Chicago problem.

Messiah also told me that the ultimate message of the play is to prevent violence from happening, and that as a society, we need to be more proactive than reactive. I couldn't agree more.

Dreams Deferred is playing for one night only, Saturday, Nov. 7, at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Hermann Hall Auditorium, 3241 S. Federal St., Chicago. Advance tickets are $20 for adults; $10 for high school students with a photo ID. Doors open at 6pm; show time is at 7pm. For more information, visit the Save Our Dreams website or call 773-979-2383.

— LaShawn Williams / Comments (8)