Staged Reading: Hurt Village by Katori Hall

It’s the end of a long summer in Hurt Village, a housing project in Memphis, Tennessee. A government Hope Grant means relocation for many of the project’s residents, including Cookie, a thirteen-year-old aspiring rapper, along with her mother, Crank, and great-grandmother, Big Mama. As the family prepares to move, Cookie’s father, Buggy, unexpectedly returns from a tour of duty in Iraq.  Ravaged by the war, Buggy struggles to find a position in his disintegrating community, along with a place in his daughter Cookie’s heart.

“Ferocious and expansive…the signal achievement of the play is to stare irony down and make grit seem true again…passionate”