Warriors Don’t Cry is the memoirs of Melba Pattillo Beals, one of the first black students to experience integration with a white high school. She was one of the Little Rock Nine. The book is about the discrimination she faced as a student, and before she was enrolled. The show is verbatim from the book, written in 1994. The book portrays the year 1957.
Arkansas was filled with tension in 1957. Segregation was legal in America, and a new conversation had began about integration - especially in public schools. Melba Beals wanted an improved education, and the same opportunities as the white people in Little Rock. She signed up to attend an all-white school.
I was curious to see how the actress would adapt the book to stage, while still quoting it verbatim. Having never read the book, I was expecting it to sound like a historical textbook rather than a story. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it onstage, as it was told as a story and had multiple characters. There was virtually no statement of facts, or explanation of a historical event. Instead, the actress brought us through a plot, something with a storyline. It was very well done.
I was curious to see how the actress would adapt the book to stage, while still quoting it verbatim. Having never read the book, I was expecting it to sound like a historical textbook rather than a story. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it onstage, as it was told as a story and had multiple characters. There was virtually no statement of facts, or explanation of a historical event. Instead, the actress brought us through a plot, something with a storyline. It was very well done.
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