IRT playwright-in-residence James Still debuts play on a key moment in Indianapolis’ racial history


One of the greatest speeches in American history began with a sentence that made a crowd shriek. The wails, high and desperate, confirmed what had been on everyone’s minds for years — that all would not end well. But those cries did not herald violence, as had happened in more than 100 cities that night. Instead of riots, mournful applause followed the speech, made by a white presidential candidate to the predominantly black residents of inner-city Indianapolis as racial tensions reached a new peak.

How did Robert F. Kennedy do it? On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. Earlier that day, Kennedy, campaigning for the upcoming Indiana primary, made impassioned speeches about civil rights and racism at University of Notre Dame and Ball State University. After King’s assassination, Indianapolis’ police chief warned Kennedy not to come to 17th and Broadway, the planned location for his third and final stop. It would not be safe.

It was dark by the time Kennedy arrived in Indianapolis. He stood on the back of a flatbed truck and told the crowd the news. Howls came pouring out. Kennedy maintained his composure, then delivered an impromptu, five-minute plea for peace.

And so a white politician became etched into the history of fighting for the rights of black people in America. His words were notable because they were not patronizing. He condemned one white man for the murder of a great black man but did not condemn all white people, nor did he minimize the black community’s outrage toward white-on-black violence.

But there are always gray areas to navigate when talking about race. This is something Kennedy knew, so he kept his speech short, personal and inspiring.

It’s also something James Still, the Los Angeles-based playwright-in-residence for the Indiana Repertory Theatre, knew and still knows — that the conversation will always be difficult and most likely inadequate.

Still, who is white, often asked his friends if he could and should write “April 4, 1968,” which has its world premiere Oct. 20  at the IRT. The play follows an African-American family in Indianapolis for 24 hours as they learn of the death of King and hear Kennedy’s speech.

Like Kennedy, Still couldn’t march into 17th and Broadway without acknowledging his whiteness. That acknowledgment was the first step toward writing across difference. Like Kennedy, Still knew that the topic of race would have to be broached sensitively but also boldly.

“It always matters who the storyteller is. It’s a lens. I do have a white lens,” Still says. “I’m also gay. I have an ‘Other’ lens. I’m from a small town in Kansas, so I have a small-town lens. I lived in New York for a long time, so I also have an urban lens. I’ve lived in Los Angeles, a very racially complicated city, for 20 years.”

Still says he never had an agenda for the play. The play, he says, is neither a documentary nor a spoonful of medicine. He says the play is more of a Pandora’s Box, an opening up of frustrations and problems, than a feel-good story. But it’s also not an issue play — it’s ultimately about human beings inhabiting a specific time and place.

It is, simply, a work of art that emerged after five years of interviews with those who were there for Kennedy’s speech. Still conducted more than 50 hourlong interviews with residents of that neighborhood. Instead of devising a play, then enriching it with research, he did it the other way around. He began listening to stories — stories of mothers and fathers and daughters. Then a story, about an African-American family who wakes up in their Indianapolis home on April 4, emerged.

“It’s a school day, a work day,” Still says. “It’s a day that seems like it will be any other day, which becomes a day they will never forget.”

Yet complicated and resonant themes form an undercurrent to that day-in-the-life simplicity. “April 4, 1968,” premieres at a time when Americans are having trouble agreeing on how upset they should be getting over racism. They are fighting not just over racism itself but also over where it begins and ends and how they should go on talking about it. "Black Lives Matter," for instance, a modern movement with hints of 1960s-era collective anger, has elicited "All Lives Matter."

Kennedy’s speech is memorialized by a sculpture at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park, which depicts Kennedy and King reaching out toward each other, their hands a mere yard apart. But anyone following the news in 2014 and 2015, and the disparate discussions that spawned from them, might wonder if that physical space between those two hands represents not an oh-so-close reconciliation of the country’s complex racial history but a chasm — deep and filled with blood.

Even if King and Kennedy were doomed — Kennedy was slain in Los Angeles two months after his Indianapolis speech — their visions lived on. That’s a lesson Still learned from the residents of Indianapolis.

Still sighs when he thinks about the recent shootings and riots that have opened up dialogue about racism in the country. “It’s hard,” he says. “It’s one more reason why April 4, 1968, is important. By looking at a less recent moment in life that’s still in our lifetimes, it invites us to reflect on where we really are on racial politics, on racism.”

“My play takes place in a 24-hour period. I’m highly suspicious of any play where you quickly get to some resolution that makes everybody feel better,” he adds. “Instead, what happens is Pandora’s Box. There’s lots to be despaired about in the course of these 24 hours. But in the end, is there hope? Yes.”


If you go

What: "April 4, 1968."

When: Oct. 20 to Nov. 15.

Where: Indiana Repertory Theatre, 140 W. Washington St.

How much: $25-$59.

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