Provocative and insightful observations about the state of African-Americans!! Humor with an understanding that healing on this journey is essential for the psyche. A terrific evening with a talented actor!!

I am a BIG theater person and go to atleast one production a week...whether it be at a small 25 to a 3000+ seat venue. Unfortunately, I must say that Emergency was HUGE dissapointment! It is claimed that Beaty plays 40+ characters...however, it felt more like 10 characters. Also, these characters for the most part, were poorly portrayed. It felt as if he was planning on the sensitive and important topic on the production itself (neglecting to provide a good script and acting performance) was going to automatically hook us in! Unfortunately, it did not! On the positive side, Beaty does have a good voice and is good at poetry slamming.

I'm a literary historian and my husband is involved in economic development and foundation work. We actually walked out of this performance about forty minutes in, something we rarely do. The play indulged in a kind of stereotypical bufoonery that felt like pandering (to a largely white audience). Instead of enlightening and entertaining the audience, it trivialized historical trauma and experience by staging about all of the stereotypes one can engage. It was also poorly written (a homeless man's reminiscence of his mother's cooking ended like this: "her pound cake was like. . . .gold") and its language unoriginal.

We went for our anniversary and left feeling disturbed, degraded and disappointed.