“I speak of a rage time innumerable…” While at a Black Lives Matter rally in the summer of 2020, I met a young woman. This occasion was the first time I went out in public post-Covid, my anger at the senseless violence greater than the fear of risking my health. We spoke at length about the link between art and activism. We both despaired at how unlikely we were to find theatre that spoke to the Black community due to the whitewashed nature of modern entertainment. I wanted to create a work that spoke to the average Black person in America, a play that eschewed all the hoity-toity artifice that we in theatre are taught as the “appropriate” way to create art. I was very intrigued by the happenings of the late ‘60s and 70s and other participatory art. Since I wanted to make this play a microcosm of the Black experience, I knew how important the use of song would be,a way for the characters to express their fears, anger, and joy when words failed. Black Dirge serves as a play within a play, a fourth wall breaking piece that tries to express the daily rage I felt, a rage that all Black Americans may feel when faced with the discrimination in society. It is my hope that this piece will give a voice to those marginalized, that it will offer a catharsis for the despair we face in these times.