THE PEOPLE WITH THE TREES IN THEIR CHEST
Writer | Production Manager | Grant Recipient
Produced by Grand Vision Foundation, Spring 2024
Workshop Production Funded by the California Creative Corps
The People with the Trees in Their Chest is a modern-day play following the Berkeleys, an African American family from Brooklyn struggling to break a generational curse of poor heart health. Loosely based on my own family’s story, the piece explores how systemic barriers to medical care intersect with grief, memory, and survival within Black families.
Through lyrical language, magical realism, and intergenerational storytelling, the play highlights the quiet ways health inequity passes through a bloodline—and how love, spirituality, and resistance take root in the body. This work was supported by a grant from the California Creative Corps, focused on spotlighting health equity and cultural healing in communities across California.
