Soul Rep commissioned celebrated up and coming area playwright, Erin Malone Turner, to develop a comedic play about being Black and queer, through a generous TACA New Works Grant.

Malone’s gorgeous new play set in a Black owned bookstore in Louisiana in the 1990’s, is a celebration of “first” queer love, the human spirit, bibliophiles, and community. It is a play Malone has written

“for anyone falling in love or trying not to, for those hiding from the world or stepping out into it, for people who refuse to be subdued. for the book lovers and travelers, for the have-a-good-time-ers, for the businesswomen and stand-in mothers, for the average students and decent employees, for the tea enthusiasts and amateur birdwatchers. for those hoping and grieving, especially, remarkably at the same time. for the queers of the South and the riot of their resilience and light. for the buoyant people of Louisiana who decline to drown. for all the Charms, Ivys, Ellisons, Jacs, and Peanuts out there. for you. for me.”

Playwright Erin Malone Turner is a New Orleans born, Dallas-based playwright, poet, actor, and middle school English teacher. She graduated from UT Arlington in 2017 with a BA in English and a Creative Writing minor. Her featured plays across DFW include: “the secret keepers” & “GRAY” (Bishop Arts Theatre Center), through a glass darkly (Amphibian Stage), “how to catch a ghost” (Kitchen Dog Theater), “the way it was/the way it is” (Soul Repertory Theatre), and “i thought you hung the moon” (Luckenbooth Theatre) - the last of which was nominated for a BroadwayWorld Dallas award. Her artistic drive includes telling Black stories within the realm of speculative fiction. She has been mentored by Audra McDonald for the past year.

Soul Rep Theatre Company was founded in 1995 by Dallas/Fort Worth natives Guinea Bennett-Price, Anyika McMillan-Herod, and Tonya Holloway. Guinea and Anyika are both products of Dallas ISD's Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (Class of ’89), while all three co-founders hold BFAs in Theater from the dynamic undergraduate programs of Howard University and Prairie View A&M University. The trio returned to Dallas in the mid 90’s after attending graduate school programs and internships at regional theaters across the country. They shared a tremendous desire to establish a theater company in Dallas dedicated to the Black experience.