JEREMY O. HARRIS
KEKE PALMER HAD TO PEE. It was act two of the critically lauded and much-discussed Broadway production Slave Play, a two-hour intermission-less performance, and the multi-hyphenate star had to go to the bathroom. So, she did.
Palmer stood up from her seat, crouched, raised a singular finger, and slowly started making her way down her row to the aisle. She quietly apologized along the way: “Sorry, sorry, sorry.” But the audience of around 800 Black folks in the John Golden Theatre on Sept. 18 understood the gesture; they knew the “church finger,” a hallmark of most Black Southern Baptist churches, now brought to Broadway. After all, they were there to witness Jeremy O. Harris’ Blackout.
The inspiration for Blackout, a performance of Harris’ viewed almost exclusively by Black showgoers (legally they could not bar non-Black people, so there were a handful) came in part by frustration, and in part by a dare. The challenge—or at least that’s how the playwright took it—was handed down by musician Kelela during a conversation between her and Harris for . The star told Harris that she wanted to see the
