Tag: Andrew Carleton

Rogers’ play, “White People,” that tackles issues of racism—both subconscious and overt—and is designed to get audience members talking about their own assumptions. “I’ve been asked why I’m doing this play because it seems like it’s just criticizing white Americans. It’s about acknowledging that we all have assumptions that we make about other people.” The show’s producers are a group of young people from mostly conservative backgrounds who had their own assumptions challenged by the play, said the show’s marketing director Andrew Carleton. “It almost got together as kind of a book club and some of the conversations were really challenging and we wanted to share that with our community.” The show is independently produced in collaboration with StageCoach, which is providing the venue. StageCoach’s new space in old Ashburn offers an intimate venue for the sometimes funny, sometimes uncomfortable and definitely not kid-friendly material. Webb plays Alan, a well-intended liberal New York professor whose biases are revealed in his fixation with a bright African-American student, and who reaches a boiling point after he and his pregnant wife are mugged in a city park. The group decided to take things to the next level with a theatrical production of the play. It’s not about white guilt or blaming one particular group. I think really and truly it’s about understanding and acknowledging that there are things within our subconscious that can affect how we view people and how we think about people in negative ways that we don’t even know are there,” Webb said. Webb, who had planned to go straight from college to law school or graduate school, is now considering a career in entertainment or cultural expression.