About the Play:

Past Is the Past and Gettin' It Together contains a pair of one-act plays by Richard Wesley. The Past is the Past is a drama that depicts the encounter between a black father and the grown son he had abandoned long ago, and Gettin' It Together is the story of a man and a woman who can neither stay together nor keep apart.

The Past Is The Past has been called Richard Wesley's finest short play. The scene is a pool hall, where Earl Davis, a man in his mid-forties, plays a solitary game. He is joined by Eddie Green, a young college student in his 20s, who watches the older man in silence, and then challenges him to a game. Their conversation, casual at first, soon makes it clear that these two men, who have never met before, do, in fact recognize each other. They are, in truth, father and son, but they reveal this fact gradually and, in the father's case, reluctantly. In the end, this truth emerges – but so does the fact that the years of absence that separate them are too great a gulf to be bridged, and the past must, indeed, remain the past. (Cast: 2 male)

What people say about The Past Is The Past:

"Richard Wesley has a gift for thoughtfully expressing issues that involve Black families and Black men. He tells stories from the point of view of each character to help the audience understand the emotions of each character." — New York Amsterdam News

In Gettin' It Together, the action begins in a Newark park, where Nate and Coretta, the mother of his child, have been picnicking. A mood of bitterness has been generated by Coretta's suspicion that Nate has been seeing another woman, a mood that is not dispelled when, later at her apartment, she tries to entice Nate into staying the night. She is convinced he no longer loves her, while Nate, who wants security and some measure of success before committing himself to marriage, tries to make her understand his position. In the end, a kind of truce is reached, but one as uncertain, and conditional, as the life that circumstance has forced on them. (Premiered in 1972 at the Public Theatre in New York City; Cast: 1 female, 1 male)

What people say about Gettin' It Together:

"...Richard Wesley has written a tender, sad and compassionate play that is utterly and luminously honest." — Time Magazine

About the Playwright:

Richard Wesley is an African American playwright, and screenwriter for television and cinema. He is an Associate Professor in Playwriting and Screenwriting at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts where he is currently the Chair of the Department of Dramatic Writing.