City Lit Theatre- Black Lives Matter

As part of the ongoing conversation related to the Black Lives Matter protests, City Lit is making available for free download the full text of The Bloodhound Law by our resident playwright Kristine Thatcher.  City Lit commissioned and produced the play in 2015 as part of our Civil War Project.  Scrupulously historically accurate, The Bloodhound Law examines Illinois’s involvement with the Fugitive Slave Act, which legalized the kidnapping of African Americans in Northern cities.  The “bloodhound law” was supported by both of Illinois’s U.S. senators at the time, but opposed by the heavily abolitionist people of Chicago.  The play sheds important light on the origins of the struggle still going on.

Click here to download The Bloodhound Law. files.constantcontact.com

Here also are links to City Lit’s postings on related topics that we think may help provide additional background on the need for this conversation.

Finally, through our outreach program The Viola Project, City Lit works in Chicago public schools providing after-school Shakespeare performance workshops.  As a result of our work there, we have come to the opinion that the presence in the schools of Chicago police is counterproductive.  If this is a topic of interest to you, please follow the link below to a petition we are helping to circulate requesting the end of regular police presence in Chicago public schools.