And In This Corner: Cassius Clay By Aaron Cabell

The production of And in This Corner: Cassius Clay at the Charlotte Children's Theater, by director Aaron Cabell, was a dramatic adaptation of a real-life event that took on a serious historical context. Idris Goodwin's play follows Cassius Clay, better known as Muhammad Ali, through the mid 1900s. With this play taking place in a children's theater, the production faced a unique challenge due to the historical context and the age group of the audience, for this reason, the theater warns the viewers on their website that there may be racially motivated prejudices expressed in the play. Throughout the approximately 60-minute runtime, Cassius discovers his natural attraction toward boxing. As Cassius becomes a world class boxer, he encounters typical coming of age themes, which are accompanied with a variety of racial undertones and situations that accurately represent the civil rights era.
A major obstacle that the theater had to overcome due to
The contributions of these monologues were extremely beneficial in promoting the understanding of the time period surrounding specific events. When the murder of Emmett Till was addressed, there was a monologue that explained the differences between the northern and southern regions of the United States, specifically the Jim Crow Laws that were implemented throughout the South. However, there was some confusion surrounding the monologues because it was not abundantly clear if the monologues were meant to address the characters on stage or not. To make this distinction clearer, a change in the lighting would have been beneficial. Having a spotlight on the character giving the monologue and darkening the rest of the stage would allow the audience to better understand that the monologue was meant to promote their understanding of the