by Genea L. Webb, For New Pittsburgh Courier
“Searching for Willie Lynch” is the most disturbing play Layon Gray has ever been led to write.
The genesis for the play came to Gray after learning about the Willie Lynch letter, also known as the William Lynch Speech, which was given by William Lynch, a British White supremacist slave owner from the West Indies. He was asked to go to Virginia to help American slave owners control their slaves. The speech was given on the bank of the James River in 1712. The speech taught slave owners how to control their slaves through mind control by exploiting the differences between Blacks—skin color, age and pitting them against each other. Lynch surmised that using his methods would keep the Black race down for 300 years.
This little-known piece of Black history intrigued Gray. That’s when his play, “Searching for Willie Lynch,” was born.
“I didn’t know about the letter. I stumbled upon it while I was working on something else, like it happens with most of my works. I was like, ‘Wow, this is fascinating’ to know that this could have possibly happened so many years ago and to see this happening today—Black people not supporting other Black people—so I had to dig a little bit deeper and really do some research and that’s how I came up with this play,” explained the award-winning playwright.
“Searching for Willie Lynch” is set around three families who have or had relatives living in the same house for generations. The three families from different years—2008, 1965 and 1925—discuss how the text of the letter has affected them and is still doing so to this day, and how a door could be a portal to the past that just might lead to a celebration of the future.
“All these characters in the play dip into text from the letter into the dialogue of the show. It is set in Louisiana in 1965, 2008 and 1925. The play is set in one play and I have to show how people start feeling and hearing each other. Things start bubbling up when Obama gets elected in 2008, in 1965 was when Malcolm X got assassinated. The play is dealing with all of these different issues of what the text of the Willie Lynch letter meant and how the issues have affected African Americans back then up to present day,” said Gray who hails from Louisiana and resides in New York.
Gray’s ability to find a nugget of obscure history and create an amazing production that will keep people taking long after the production has ended is why New Horizon Theater has been choosing Gray’s plays as its season opener since 2013.
“We love having Layon. They are great to work with. They work well with our local crew so it works out really well. We’re excited about them coming and we’re excited that we’ll be at a new location for us, the Dr. Vernell Audrey Watson Lillie Theatre (on the South Side), which is part of the City Theater,” said Joyce Meggerson-Moore, with New Horizon Theater.
City Theater is unaffiliated with the production but is serving as a host venue. That’s fine with New Horizon, Meggerson-Moore said, “because when you are performing in other folks’ venues, they think it’s their production. We are very proud to be performing there.”
The Lillie Theatre is located at 1300 Bingham St. Once patrons go to new horizontheater.org to purchase their tickets, they can see exactly where to go. Meggerson-Moore said patrons need to order tickets early due to the intimate seating of the venue.
“I love working with Joyce and New Horizon. They always bring my work and they know it’s going to be something that’s educational historical for their audiences to see,” Gray said. “We’re doing it in an intimate setting which is making it better because the audience will be very close to the actors, like two feet away, and they can breathe the same air and feel the emotions at that theater,.”
“Searching for Willie Lynch” will run from November 17-20. Tickets are $25 general admission; $20 for seniors (age 65 and over); $15 for students (K-12). Discounts are available for groups of 10 or more.
Tickets can be purchased by visiting newhorizontheater.org, calling 412-431-0773, emailing
newhorizontheater@yahoo.com, or visiting Dorsey’s on Frankstown Avenue.
“I’m anxious to see how Layon is going to present this to us. With Layon’s plays you can’t be sleeping on them because you’ll miss something,” Meggerson-Moore said. “I believe a lot of people are going to identify with it once they begin to research it and look into it It gives a historical perspective and it’s believable to me, but you have to do your own research and see what conclusion you come to.”
Gray said he is glad to be unshelving “Searching for Willie Lynch” for the New Horizon audience. The play was last produced five years ago. Gray said he is in the process of talking to off-Broadway theaters in New York to show the play in 2023.
Although the letter was purportedly written in 1712, it didn’t surface in print until the 1970s. It gained national prominence when minister Louis Farrakhan referred to the speech in 1995 during the Million Man March.
“There’s a lot of people who believe the letter isn’t real because a lot of people didn’t hear about it until Farrakhan spoke about it and then there’s people who say, ‘no, this really happened.’ We touch on all of that during the 90 minutes of the show. I want people to go read the letter and determine how the letter affects them in present day,” Gray said.
“When people come see the play, they will truly feel enjoyment inside because we talk about both sides. We talk about the Blacks who support each other and the Blacks who don’t support each other, which is pretty much what the letter that this White man wrote all these years ago is saying. We’re not talking about the Willie Lynch letter verbatim, we’re just going around the text and what it meant and how it has affected African Americans back from slavery times up until present time,” Gray said.
The question then becomes, were these psychological control devices embedded into our ancestors’ minds and got transferred to us to continue on?
It seems like the Willie Lynch techniques are still working on the psyche of many African Americans today.
“I had to tell both sides of the story in the play,” Gray said. “At the end, everyone comes together and there’s an agreement on we need to understand each other, things need to change, we need to do better. We are all one people.”
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