Student Organizations

Carleton Players present "Harlem Nocturne" a play written and directed by David Wiles. 

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Harlem Nocturne is set in New York City in the summer of 1927 at the height of what has become known as “The Harlem Renaissance.” Although it’s a “period” play it deals with issues around race that are sadly still relevant.

The central characters in the play are representatives of what the people whose efforts created and drove the Renaissance termed “The New Negro,” African-American’s whose educations and economic circumstances should have positioned them to achieve the “American Dream” but for their place in the racial caste system. The play explores the conflicts within and between family members and old friends that are generated by the contradictions of living with what W.E.B. DuBois called “...this double- consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others...”

The play uses irony and (the author certainly hopes) humor to deal with “passing.” Two of the central characters are African-Americans whose complexions allow them to live as white when they choose to. It explores color prejudice among African-Americans, class consciousness, family conflict, the necessity of friendship and the consolations of art and music, along with the simple fact that there are loves and losses that affect us all in ways that transcend even race.