Art and Politics Are Inseparable in Little Rock, the Hit Play from Award-winning Playwright/Director Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj '11 M.F.A.

Little Rock—a play with music, about the lives, tribulations, and triumphs of the nine black students who were the first in the nation to integrate an all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas—is a New York Times Critic's Pick. And while he is overjoyed at the acclaim his work is receiving, what humbles the play's award-winning playwright/director/choreographer/producer Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj '11 M.F.A. most is the fact that the members of the "Little Rock Nine," as they have come to be known historically, had the opportunity to attend the show and give it their stamp of approval.

"It was transcendent," Maharaj says of the meeting. "They're in their 70s and 80s now and live all around the world. I believe very much what Dr. Maya Angelou said that if the only prayer you ever say is ‘thank you,' it will be enough. So to have the Little Rock Nine turn to me, the grandson of a Caribbean-immigrant domestic, a person who grew up without his dad, and say, ‘thank you,'—all the times I was called the n*gg*r, or dot-head, or f*gg*t, or all the things that kids do to bully you when you choose to live a life that is creative, artistic, and free—it all went away. I knew at that moment, I had arrived."

Born in Brooklyn and raised mostly in Long Island, Maharaj is of Haitian, Bahamian, Trinidadian, and Indian descent, and spent many of his formative years in the West Indies. He says his family and Caribbean heritage was a tremendous influence on his life and the impetus for his understanding that art and activism are not separate endeavors.

"My culture has shaped who I am as an artist and activist. From Junkanoo [an ancestral African festival], with its beautiful elaborate costumes, to going to church and seeing the robes and the nativity—it all lends itself to my passion as a storyteller," Maharaj says, adding that luminaries like Marcus Garvey, Angela Davis, Dr. Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin impacted him in transformative ways. On the interior of his right forearm, Maharaj has a tattoo of an excerpt from one of Baldwin's final interviews where he responds to a question about the meaning of his work:

"At the end of the day, my work is this: Witness to whence I came, where I am. Witness to what I have seen and the possibilities that I think I see."

Maharaj completed his undergraduate studies at St. John's University, receiving degrees in criminal justice and communications. He always knew that he was a creative person, but did not foresee that he was going to be a playwright. He came to Brooklyn College and attended classes with Woodie King, Jr. '99 M.F.A.—the NAACP Image Award- and Obie Award-winning director and producer known as "the Godfather of Black Theater"—and enrolled in the Department of Theater's Master of Fine Arts in Theater Directing.

"I always felt that when I read a play that it was just something I could articulate and be the bridge for. Going to Brooklyn College I knew that I wanted to get my master's because I wanted to learn how to speak to designers," says Maharaj.

"That's the beauty of the program at Brooklyn College and the experience I had there. It was really hands-on. You had to move your own props and your own chairs, and there were dust balls the size of tumbleweeds in the room," he laughs. "But that all shaped me because I came through the downtown theater scene and kept me honest and humble."

Many people in the Little Rock's very diverse audiences, as well as reviewers, have noted the timeliness of the story and how it echoes the current sociopolitical milieu in the country. Maharaj sees that as a gift and a lesson, particularly for the modern-day African diaspora.

"If these black teenagers could persevere two years after Emmett Till's death, then who are we today to not be the change we wish to see in the world, to not be stewards of justice, light, and truth? If we have in us even a portion of the resolve the Little Rock Nine had in them, then we come from a mighty stock! And we must never forget that."

Maharaj has been directing for years. He said he has always seen and interpreted things visually, which is why directing feels most natural to him. But playwriting came to him as a gift after a chance encounter with "the Black Shakespeare," two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, August Wilson.

"Woodie, who founded the New Federal Theatre in New York, was doing a production of one of Wilson's plays, and during the intermission, I got the chance to meet him and walk with him a little bit. He talked to me about the concept of Sankofa [a Ghanaian philosophy for remembering the past in order to forge an informed present and future] and how as a playwright, your ancestors take a hold of you. You won't be able to let go of them, and they will guide you. And if you don't answer the call, they may be lost in time and space."

Following that conversation with Wilson, Maharaj says he was given three signs that led him to write Little Rock. He was directing Dreamgirls at Arkansas Repertory Theater, visited Little Rock Central High School and learned the students' stories of courage. He then saw the Little Rock Nine on an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show, and when some of them came to see Dreamgirls at the Arkansas Repertory Theater, he believed the ancestors were calling upon him to tell the story. Maharaj spent 13 years interviewing the members of the Little Rock Nine as well as many of the residents of the town. Some of them were on the wrong side of history in 1957, but went through a transformation; some remained stuck in their hatred of marginalized peoples.

The challenges that Maharaj faced in getting Little Rock to the stage were not of the artistic kind. Instead, he says, the obstacles came from certain producers.

"They told me as a person of color that you cannot be, as Walt Whitman would say, ‘multitudes.' You have to be one thing. I have always seen myself as multitudes. Unapologetically. I tell every single person in my tribe that you have to be multitudes, particularly in these very strange political times we're living in, where people are literally, trying to roll back the clock of history and the progress we have made," Maharaj says. "We must all become beacons of light and truth. If we do not show up as our fully authentic selves, then, to paraphrase Nelson Mandela, the world is a much dimmer place."

Little Rock is playing at the Sheen Theater for Thought & Culture in New York until September 8.

The Brooklyn College Department of Theater is able to provide its graduate and undergraduate students with the kind of comprehensive learning and experience they need to thrive in the theater world thanks to the generous support of alumni and friends received through the Brooklyn College Foundation. To learn about the various ways to contribute to student success, please visit the foundation website.