Plays

Plays by Valerie Knight exploring the human condition:

Starvin
An odyssey of a morbidly obese African American woman choosing life or death.

A Dawn in Her Own Day
This play follows the journey of the birth of an activist and her inner self through the evolution of Almitra, the central character. An African American teenager growing into womanhood, she is propelled by the poisoning of a river in a Harlem community. Characters represent differing points of view—those hesitant to involve themselves, those wanting to take radical action, and those who are stirred by the death of a young boy. The river is simultaneously a symbol and a reality for this community.

T.R.O.B.A.: Clarence and Ginni
Set in the home and mind of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the night before the Dobbs decision on abortion, this play explores history in the making. Ginni Thomas urges him to take his place in history. Fisherman appears as the alter ego in Thomas’ background and mind—an amalgam of his grandfather, society’s view of a Black man, and his inner motive to achieve.

Drawing Close
An imagined account of a young Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who encounters and interviews her first dying child. Like the medical personnel circa 1958, she arrives prepared to be the expert, until confronted with her own assumptions about life shortly after World War II. The play foreshadows her life’s work on the dying stages, hospice, and the value of life.

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