Spread the Word!

At the center of Cassandra Medley’s Noon Day Sun is a woman who has crossed the color line in pursuit of another life. Born Zena, a Black woman in the Jim Crow South, she leaves behind poverty, loss, and a broken marriage and reinvents herself as Wendy, passing as white and building a new life with her Irish-American husband, Brian.

Ten years later, on a white-hot day in Detroit, Zena unexpectedly encounters Reuben, her Black husband from the past. His return forces her into confrontation not only with the identity she has left behind, but with the grief they share—the loss of their children, the failure of their marriage, and the circumstances that once made escape seem necessary. The production resisted reducing either Zena or Reuben to the choices they had made, instead exploring the wounds, desires, shame, and love that continued to bind them.

Against the optimism of 1950s America—the automobile industry, upward mobility, and the promise that anyone might reinvent themselves—the play confronts the racial limits of that promise. Zena and Brian have both attempted to escape poverty and construct new identities, but only Zena’s reinvention requires the erasure of her race, her history, and ultimately part of herself.

Noon Day Sun became an exploration of race, identity, and the American promise of self-invention: who is afforded the freedom to become someone else, what must be surrendered in order to belong, and whether a life built upon the concealment of one’s past can ever allow the whole self to survive.

Starring Emmy Award winner Ron Cephas Jones (This Is Us), Gin Hammond (The Syringa Tree), Melanie Nicholls-King (HBO's The Wire), and Michael McGlone (The Brothers McMullen).

Best Dramatic Production of the Year, Audelco Award nomination
Best Play, Audelco Award nomination

"Under Victor Lirio’s lyrical direction, Gin Hammond manages to artfully show Zena’s conflict, and not just her artifice; Obie Award Winner Ron Cephas Jones, using Reuben’s past shame to motor his present determination, gives a performance of fierce honesty ... Deftly layering melodrama over a headier look at the invention of identity, NOON DAY SUN shines brightly." - Aaron Riccio, Time Out New York Critic's Choice
(Featured on NBC's Saturday Morning Show)

"Victor Lirio sure-handedly directs this stark material …"
- David Finkle, Theatermania

“NOON DAY SUN SHINES A BRIGHT LIGHT! Elegantly directed by Victor Lirio, all of the characters are richly detailed and three-dimensional ... one of this season’s early great performances!” -Scott Siegel, Talkinbroadway.com

"I see at least 100 shows a year, but rarely do I walk out of the theatre feeling as uplifted as I did after seeing this provocative, beautifully acted play Monday night. It was the rare experience of seeing a production that is first rate in every way. NOON DAY SUN is theatre at its transforming best. Cassandra Medley’s play, under the insightful direction of Victor Lirio, is involving from start to finish. NOON DAY SUN gives human faces and human hearts to the issues of racism and the search for identity."
- Retta Blaney, Drama Desk Critic