James Cusati-Moyer

Slave Play is a three-act play by Jeremy O. Harris about race, sex, power relations, trauma, and interracial relationships. It follows three interracial couples undergoing "Antebellum Sexual Performance Therapy" because the black partners no longer feel sexual attraction to their white partners. The title refers both to the history of slavery in the United States and to sexual slavery role-play. Harris originally wrote the play in his first year at the Yale School of Drama, and it debuted on a major stage on November 19, 2018, in an Off-Broadway New York Theatre Workshop staging directed by Robert O'Hara. It opened on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on October 6, 2019. In 2019, Slave Play was nominated for Best Play in the Lucille Lortel Awards, and Claire Warden won an Outstanding Fight Choreography Drama Desk Award for her work in the play. The play has been the center of controversy due to its themes and content. At the 74th Tony Awards, Slave Play received 12 nominations, breaking the record set by the 2018 revival of Angels in America for most nominations for a non-musical play, though it did not receive any awards. Act One begins at McGregor Plantation, a southern cotton plantation in pre-Civil War Virginia. The first act chronicles three private meetings and sexual encounters of three interracial couples. The play begins with the song "Work" by Rihanna playing in the McGregor's overseer cottage. Kaneisha, a slave, begins to twerk to the song when Jim, a white slave owner, walks in holding a whip. Jim is repeatedly uncomfortable when Kaneisha calls him "Master," but berates her for not cleaning the room better and throws a cantaloupe on the ground and tells Kaneisha to eat it. As Kaneisha eats the cantaloupe, she begins to dance again, which confuses and arouses Jim. The overseer then initiates sex with Kaneisha. When she asks to be called a "nasty, lazy negress," he instead proceeds to perform cunnilingus.