• The Play and Its Context
  • Emily Mann on Having Our Say
  • Delany Family Tree
  • Timeline of the Delany Sisters’ Lifetime
  • Important Historical Figures in the Delanys’ Lives
• About this Production
  • Who’s Who
  • Interview With Emily Mann
• Theater in the Classroom
  • Core Curriculum Standards
  • Pre-Show Discussion Questions and Activities
  • Post-Show Discussion Questions and Activities
• Additional Resources

Emily Mann on Having Our Say

Dear Patrons,

When I arrived at McCarter in 1990 for a three-year appointment, how could I have known I would stay for twenty years, or that the reason for my decision was in great part due to my falling so deeply in love with this audience?

McCarter’s audience is remarkable.  You are smart, generous, insightful, challenging, and warm.  You are great listeners and artistic risk-takers.  And because of you, McCarter continues to attract the best artists in the world to create theater here in Princeton.  It is also because of you that so many plays have begun their lives here at McCarter before going on to be seen around the world. In fact, during my tenure as Artistic Director, plays that have been launched at McCarter have been featured a dozen times in American Theatre Magazine’s list of the top ten most frequently produced plays in America.

It seems fitting, then, to inaugurate my twentieth anniversary season by bringing back one of the most popular world premieres.   I adapted the Delany sisters’ bestselling memoir (written with Amy Hill Hearth) into a play because meeting Bessie and Sadie Delany changed my life, and I wanted to share that transformative experience with McCarter’s audiences.  This time around, we are performing the play in the intimate Berlind Theatre so you will feel as though the Delany sisters are speaking directly to you, as they once spoke to me.  I chose to produce Having Our Say again not only to mark this twentieth anniversary, but also because we are now in a new millennium and a new political era that has both transformed our society’s perspective on race and revealed the challenges that remain.

After the original production here at McCarter in 1995, Having Our Say went on to a highly successful Broadway run (garnering three Tony Award nominations and two Drama Desk Award nominations).  It has been performed internationally (including a celebrated production at the Market Theatre in South Africa) and was turned into a television movie, earning a Peabody Award for Excellence in Television and an NAACP Image Award nomination. It could not have had its remarkable life without first having the support of the McCarter community.

Enjoy the production, and thank you for making this play possible.

My best wishes,