Front – Patrice Jean Baptiste and MaConnia Chesser. Cast in background. Photo by Ken Yotsukura

Presented by Company One Boston
By Miranda Austen ADEkoje
Directed by Summer L. Williams
Dramaturgy by Lizzy Cooper Davis

July 18 – Aug. 8, 2026
The Strand Theatre
Online Playbill 

Critique by Kitty Drexel

Seating is general admission. This performance runs approximately 2 hours, including one 10-minute intermission.

TLDR: New plays are imperfect. Production under duress signifies resilience, fortitude, and mastery of one’s art.

DORCHESTER, Mass. — A New Era is a teaching play. It teaches us about the trailblazing careers of historical freedom-fighting Black women who accomplished great feminist works in Boston. The C1 website for A New Era tells us that this play was originally commissioned and developed for the National Park Service by Plays in Place as part of its Suffrage in Black & White series. This means A New Era was first developed to communicate many facts to an audience via dialogue in a short amount of time. It shouldn’t be judged by the same standards as another historically-based play about women’s voices such as, say, The Crucible. They are different genres with the same medium.

Over the course of two hours, A New Era triumphs as a teaching play. I learned so many facts about these women and the necessity of their work that I left feeling overwhelmed with awe. And yet, we left the Strand Theatre knowing what these women accomplished but not who they were or how they related to each other. The play’s large-scale stakes aren sky high, but the characters’ interpersonal stakes aren’t immediately apparent. For the first two acts, the characters spouted facts. Facts aren’t character development. We finally learn the inner depths of two characters, St.Pierre Ruffin and Washington, in Act 3. An audience wants to know a play’s players much sooner. 

Here is A New Era’s summary of the actions and players from the C1 production website: “Journeying across a divided America, seven formidable women -Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin (Patrice Jean-Baptiste, who acts so sincerely, and with such gravitas that I’d pay good money to watch her read the Yellow Pages), Florida Ruffin Ridley (Aliyah Harris), Anna Julie Cooper (Frances Domond), Isabel (Tolu Asade, a double-threat on the piano and on the stage), Victoria Earle Matthews (Aislinn Brophy), Fannie Barrier Williams (Regine Vital), Gertrude Sampson (MaConnia Chesser, who gives substance to a snobby secondary character), Margaret Murray Washington (Sydney Alicia Jackson) – gather right here in Boston for an unprecedented opportunity to birth a national movement. When freedom is fragile and Black Lives are at stake, can they get in formation, organize a unified coalition, and ensure a more just future? The year might be 1895, but the fight is still very much our own.

Which brings me back to my first point: A New Era is a modern teaching play. The Strand Theatre is not the best venue for this production. It wants to be performed in a museum as originally intended, preferably in the room where it all happened. Alas, that was not to be. (DOGE’s cuts to the National Endowment for the Arts is/was a travesty. The adult toddlers running the country need to pull up their big boy pants and try humanity for a change.) 

I mention this to inspire compassion in potential audience members. While the play has its flaws, Company One, Playwright ADEkoje, Director Williams, and their cast made art out of their tragedy. This shows resilience, ingenuity, and bravery. The creative team took a script meant for one venue and used their limited time and budget to transfer it to another. The cast molded the script to their purpose: The script told us that these women were using their time, money and lifeforce to fight for voting rights and against lynching. The actors painted their words with sympathy and passion to convey their personal feelings about their work. They were a Greek chorus, telling us what has happened, what may happen, and they show us how to feel about it. 

In addition to these feats, ADEkoje, Williams, and the creative team tie our nation’s past to its present. Boston remains a liberal haven for socially conservative, change-resistant working-class citizens within its racially divided neighborhoods. Act 2 asked a giddy audience to participate in the characters’ formation of the National Conference of Colored Women. (It was fun!) Music by artists such as Beyoncé, Lauren Hill, and Aretha Franklin pepper the production and transcend the spoken word. The rich, helpful dramaturgy by Lizzy Cooper Davis and articles by Kirsten Greenidge and Angela T Tate in the playbill filled in the historical blanks.

If we learn anything from A New Era, it’s that resilience, ingenuity, and bravery can take us farther than our foremothers ever imagined. C1 didn’t let perfect get in the way of good. Most new plays are in process for a long time before a playwright says, “enough.” A New Era fits into this category. It’s our privilege to watch this play develop into something sacred. 

(A big shout-out to the C1 lobby crew who were generous with their welcoming spirit without being pushy. Thank you for your kindness. This extroverted introvert greatly appreciates it.) 

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