Putting Names to Numbers

Statistics don't get diseases — people get diseases, fall sick and die. But people also have dreams, plans, and visions of the world that have nothing to do with being ill, or facing mortality at too young an age. In Nikkole Salter and Danai Gurira's play In the Continuum, the overwhelming statistics of AIDS victims that grows in Africa and in African-American communities are examined through the lens of two women in different countries but similar dire straits. Abigail is a middle-class wife and television news presenter in Zimbabwe; Nia's a nineteen-year old ex-store clerk in Los Angeles; both become infected and face the same difficulty in parallel stories: How do you live with this thing instead of die from it? The Black Rep continues its Year of the Woman with In the Continuum at 7 p.m. Thursday, 8 p.m. Friday, 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday (April 29 through May 17) at the Grandel Theatre (3610 Grandel Square; 314-534-3810 or www.theblackrep.org). Tickets are $17 to $43.
Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays. Starts: April 30. Continues through May 17, 2009