Hair Like the Sun - Why Ruth?

While I'm certain that Hair Like the Sun will prompt many questions, it's one of the things I'm hoping for, there's one question I'm certain will come up. Why is the main character in a play about the Japanese Internment Camps a white, teenage girl? That is a fair question, and I'd like to answer it now.

The first reason is that this play is a true story. Ruth Mix really was a white, teenage girl who spent the majority of World War II volunteering in the Gila River internment camp. Obviously, Ruth's story isn't the only story to come out of this tragedy. But it is one of the stories, and it is a story worth telling. Hopefully this will be the first of many such stories about the internment camps.

A Story Worth Telling

I've haven't shared this before, but I'm writing a play called "Hair Like the Sun." It's set to premiere next year at the Texas Repertory Theater. This play is a labor of love, and I'm proud to be a part of it. The reason I haven't mentioned it before, though, is because talking about it makes it real. Suddenly I'm not just noodling around in my workshop, tinkering with a hypothetical script for a hypothetical play. Now I have to face the fact that this is happening.

This project is listed on a website. It has a date. It's been printed on flyers and mailed to people. This is a real thing that has a real date with real people who are investing real money. Already this is generating real buzz which means a real audience will fill a real theater to fill real seats. And for me, this is real scary.

When this project was just a fanciful idea, a "what if" scenario, there was very little consequence for failure. It was a small project known only to a handful of people. If it didn't work in those initial stages, we could have always told ourselves that it would have been wildly successful if not for events that weren't our fault. But then the unthinkable happened. We got a green light to actually produce this play.