True talent

Topeka Capital-Journal, The, Feb 23, 2007

Bill Blankenship, The Capital-Journal's theater critic, writes:

"Topeka playwright Darren Canady demonstrates a storytelling ability well beyond his 25 years in this torn-from-the-pages-of- history drama, that, like the best of tales, offers morals and teaches lessons."

Why are we not surprised by the rave review?

Darren Canady worked at this newspaper in the summer of 2005 as a news intern, and he made a long-lasting impression on those of us fortunate enough to work with him and watch him work.

The Capital-Journal has had it share of famous interns. Susan Ford, daughter of President Gerald Ford, comes to mind.

The C-J also has had a rich history of interns who have ascended to the top of their professions, such as Chris Johns, current editor- in-chief of National Geographic.

And there have been many others.

Enter Darren Canady.

Perhaps it is premature to say this, but we won't be surprised if someday Darren is among the C-J's most famous interns.

And he is a Topeka native on top of that.

While Canady honed his reporting skills here in that summer of '05, his true love was in writing plays. And it didn't take him long to showcase those skills Thus it was that Blankenship, long-time arts editor at The Capital-Journal, traveled to Atlanta to take in "False Creeds," Canady's play that opened last week in the Woodruff Arts Center in Midtown Atlanta.

"False Creeds" explores a chapter in Midwest history that most have forgotten and many would rather not recall, writes Blankenship.

It is a fictional drama based on a real-life event on June 1, 1921, in Tulsa, Okla, where blacks had established a thriving, vibrant community called Greenwood. Some whites resented their success.

When a white mob threatened to lynch a black man for some affront he had allegedly made to a white woman, a group of Greenwood men tried to stop the hanging.

Shots were exchanged. The police deputized hundreds of men to put down what they perceived as a black uprising. By morning, 35 blocks of Greenwood had been destroyed. The mob burned more than 1,000 homes and businesses. Many residents were herded into detention camps.

One author called the event "the largest single incident of racial violence in U.S. history."

Canady, it turns out, had heard stories from his grandmother, Mattie Evans, about Greenwood survivors who had passed through Vernon, Okla., the small all-black community 70 miles south of Tulsa where Evans lived before moving to Topeka.

Thus it was that young Darren decided this was a story that needed to be told.

Canada wrote "False Creeds" while he was a master's degree candidate at New York University. It won the national Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition, earning the opportunity for it to be professionally staged at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre, where it is playing through March 4.

Canady - those of you who know him won't be surprised - was Mr. Modest when it came to commenting on the play's opening.

"I nearly keeled over dead the first two nights because they gave the show a standing ovation," he said.

Don't do that, Darren, because we suspect this is just the beginning.