Imagine a world without vaccines, traffic lights, potato chips and many other products created by black inventors.
The actors in the play 1,001 Black Inventions will transport viewers to a world where these creations do not exist tonight in Baker Center Theatre.
Four actors from Pin Points Theatre group in Washington D.C. will perform the play at Ohio University for Black History Month. The event is sponsored by the Black Student Cultural Programming Board.
Founded in 1975, Pin Points is a musical theater group that takes subjects such as history, math and social skills and incorporates them into theatrical performances, said Ersky Freeman, the founder of the group. Pin Points has performed its plays in 37 states and nine countries, he said.
Freeman wrote 1,001 Black Inventions in 1982 because he was disappointed about the way the media portrayed black people and wanted to highlight their intellectual contributions, he said.
The first part of the play focuses on the lives of four black inventors including Jan Ernst Matzeliger, who invented the way to mass produce shoes; Benjamin Banneker, who built America's first clock; George Washington Carver, who invented more than 400 products from the peanut and the potato; and Daniel Hale Williams, who invented open heart surgery.
The second part of the play portrays a modern day family trying to survive in The Twilight Zone where none of the black inventions exist, Freeman said.
Although the play is meant to be entertaining, it will also showcase black inventors who are not always acknowledged during Black History Month, said Alicia Boards, assistant director of Multicultural Programs and the BSCPB's advisor.
There are certain people you know like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King
but it's time to give recognition to people not in the limelight Boards said.
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Culture
Anna Sudar
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