From June 26-29, City Theatre’s Summer Shorts will perform short plays by Miami’s best emerging playwrights at the Sandrell Rivers Theater. In this series the playwrights share a little with the Jitney about their work.
My play, Burn Book, not to be confused with the infamous “Burn Book” from Mean Girls, delves into the fierce fight against censorship and champions the unstoppable power of knowledge.
In an era riddled with uncertainty, division, and silenced voices, it’s hard to tell whether we’re truly free or simply playing dress-up in a dystopian masquerade. Over the years, I’ve turned to faith as a refuge, a way to cope with the chaos. Yet, even faith is now under fire. Burn Book grapples with a provocative question: If the last religious text in the world were unearthed, would we burn it or safeguard its flame?
Writing this piece was a journey through social disparity, imagining a world that has effectively erased education, something disturbingly reminiscent of 2025, while exploring hope, faith, and what truly propels us toward freedom, purpose, and meaning. As an educator, I cherish the written word’s power; as a theatre artist, I revere the freedom of expression and understand the horror of its suppression.
Our two protagonists start worlds apart and I hope, by the end, they or perhaps we find common ground. Curiously fitting, this year’s Summer Shorts by City Theatre will present Burn Book as a staged reading, emphasizing the sacredness of storytelling, the urgent need for arts funding, and the eternal dialogue between humans and their stories.
I can’t wait for everyone to experience this play because in the end, it’s the stories we tell that define us.
