As parts of west Charlotte continue to change, a small, nearly century-old house in the Enderly Park neighborhood serves as both a community gathering place and the backdrop for a new immersive play centered on Black joy, belonging, and resilience.
Inside the house, at 2916 Parkway Ave., photographs of children playing in leaves, neighborhood cookouts and graduation celebrations hang on the wall. The images help capture the moments that have united residents in the Enderly Park neighborhood. A neighborhood that actor Courtney Rohan, 47, who sings in a yellow dress as part of the play, says might be perceived differently.
"From the outside looking in, though they may think it's dirty or below them, people being able to see that there's joy in those spaces that are typically considered dank or dark or lowly means that we don't have to tear it down," said Rohan. "It means they can appreciate what's already there, and they don't have to come in thinking they need to make it better in some ways."
The play, Dauntless: An Ode to 2916, celebrates the 93-year-old home's role as a neighborhood cornerstone as coffee shops, breweries, and new mansions have grown around it.
“Over and over again, I’m seeing how this house continues to be a hub for this community,” Rohan said. "How it continues to bring different people into contact with this community. It brought me — I live on the south side of Charlotte — to the west side. And it made me feel comfortable; it allowed me access to this place.”
The nonprofit QC Family Tree owns the home, which it has named in honor of civil rights activist Marian Wright Edelman. The organization provides mentorship, art workshops and community meals for neighbors. For the last three years, Mixed Metaphors Productions, the Charlotte group that created "Dauntless," has staged its plays at the Edelman House.
Kat Martin is behind the production group and says the play follows a character the theater explored in a previous work.
"In this play, you're going to be invited to come to Martha's daughter's 90th birthday," Martin said. "She's a lifelong resident of Enderly Park. In "Kudzu," we saw her being evicted, and in this play, we write a new, just future for her, where the joy and memories she's been creating in this space get to stay."
QC Family Tree also works to prevent displacement in the neighborhood. The organization owns six nearby affordable housing units for about 13 residents. Martin says Mixed Metaphors Productions aims to highlight themes of displacement through their plays.
"We want to be disrupting these narratives of erasure and creating these experiences that let us tell our own stories and kind of create these new oral histories," Martin said.
Toward the end of the play, audiences encounter performer Zulynette Morales, whose voice serves as another expression of joy in the home and community. Morales said she was drawn to the play because of what it represents.
"I really align with the values of being community-based," Morales. "They find it important to center the stories of Charlotte, so they're not lost to things like gentrification, for example. And that really resonates with me."
Morales, who has Puerto Rican roots, said she appreciates the play's emphasis on often-overlooked voices and experiences.
“If we are centering Black joy, Black voices, all that does is help everyone else rise up. Black people go through everything,” Morales said. "That no other identity can even say that they can go through, or they have gone through historically. Not in the way Black bodies have. So, I think when we center Black joy, when we center Black art, when we center Black actors, it benefits everybody else.”
And through the play Dauntless, Morales hopes community members have an opportunity to experience that joy through a small blue house in west Charlotte.
The play's next performance takes place Thursday night at the Blue House. Ticket information can be found here.
