Ellis Finney, a young up-and-coming playwright from Gloucester, will see his monologue featured this weekend at SHINE: Illuminating Black Stories, an annual evening of storytelling that explores the black experience in Virginia and Appalachia, held at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon in southwestern Virginia.
The 2016 Gloucester High School grad, who is currently working toward his Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting at Columbia University in New York City, will present his monologue “To Put My Trust In You” on Sunday at the storytelling festival.
Black playwrights from different areas of the country were invited to compose original monologues based on writing prompts derived from the theater’s local black community and the wider Appalachian region.
Finney’s monologue is about Clarence, a black worker for the University of Virginia, speaking to the families of Charlottesville’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood during a town meeting, who tries to convince them the plans the university has for t...