Smoldering Fires

Dashaun Johnston and Corey Tyler are 12-year-old black boys who seem unlikely friends: Dashaun can barely make it through the school day without getting into trouble, while Corey excels. But the two have a special bond, and together they share a dream of cleaning up their sometimes violent, drug-infested urban neighborhood. At the top of the play, Corey has just presented an oral report on a book about young activists who fought during the civil rights movement. He believes that he and Dashaun can enable change, just as those kids had decades ago—that their dream, in fact, can become reality. Dashaun, however, is less certain, drawn more as he is to the streets and the promise of quick cash if he joins a drug dealer's crew. But when tragedy strikes Corey and his family, Dashaun is riddled with guilt, anger, frustration and the dangerous desire for revenge. Then one night Corey comes to Dashaun in a heightened dream and takes him on a historical journey involving Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement. And from that journey Dashaun returns transformed, determined now to turn his neighborhood—and his life—around, particularly in the name of Corey, his one true friend. Commissioned by First Stage Children's Theater, Milwaukee.