Theater Mirror’s Kilian Melloy Talks with New Speakeasy Artistic Director Dawn Simmons on Her New Role and “Primary Trust”

Dawn Simmons (R) directs Arthur Gomez and David Castillo in “Primary Trust”

By Killian Melloy

“But that’s another story.”

It’s a line of dialogue Kenneth, the main character and narrator of “Primary Trust,” uses often. Kenneth has been through a lot, and he touches on painful memories only glancingly, leaving it to the audience to try to imagine what he’s not saying. One of only a few Black people in the mostly white town of Cranberry, New York, Kenneth has endured the occasional brush with racism; he’s also someone who grew up in an orphanage. We can’t tell what’s going on in his mind, except for the inferences he makes, the way he sometimes has to put himself on hold and count in order to stay grounded, and what he reveals through his fourth wall-breaking asides and his conversations with his best friend, Bert, and Corrina, a waitress with whom he starts to become friendly.

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