In the rough

It’s week two of rehearsals for Lookingglass Theatre’s premiere of Black Diamond: The Years the Locusts Have Eaten, and choreographer Kyle Terry is running a group of actors through a movement sequence. Lookingglass artistic director David Catlin watches calmly from behind a table at the edge of the rehearsal room, but playwright J. Nicole Brooks, a Lookingglass artistic associate and Catlin’s codirector on the show, is on her feet and charged with electricity, not quite moving with the actors but seeming to absorb their movements.

The stage manager calls lunch, and sure enough, as Brooks consults with Terry about what they’ve seen, she re-creates the routine herself. “I’m not so sure about the arms here,” says the first-time playwright with a dance background. “This thing was cool; what if it could be faster, sharper—the way Ericka [Ratcliff] was doing it was fierce.”

Fierce is an appropriate watchword for the story. Four years ago Brooks read an article in Honey magazine about the most recent civil war in Liberia, the West African country founded by freed African-American slaves. The story covered a group of female combatants in the resistance against the forces of President Charles Taylor, and focused on the group’s leader, a young woman calling herself Black Diamond.

“She was brutally gang-raped when she was a teenager, allegedly by Charles Taylor’s forces,” Brooks says. “She also witnessed the gruesome murder of her parents, who were hacked to death before her eyes.” The article also described some of Black Diamond’s soldiers, who like their colonel had adopted fighting personae. “They had these wild, crazy bush names, like Salt N Pepa One Time Respect, Born to Suffer, Ranger One Attack Force,” Brooks says. “They all had these fantastic names—their fighter names.”

Black Diamond’s story affected Brooks strongly enough to compel her to try her hand at writing for the first time. “I was about to move to Los Angeles when I read this article, and I literally couldn’t sleep after reading it. I know that sounds really corny, but it’s the truth,” she says. “I only took two suitcases with me to L.A., and this article was in one of them. I would read it and reread it. Eventually I started connecting the dots and punching out a rough draft. Initially it came from, ‘You know what, it would be hot to see 12 black chicks onstage,’” she laughs. “When they’re not up there telling some sad story, they’re just up there kicking some ass.”

Brooks moved back to Chicago some time later, and as a newly minted artistic associate, took a treatment to Lookingglass, where it was brought on for development. After workshops and extensive research, Black Diamond took shape as what Brooks calls a fusion of satire, drama and documentary. Sound like a full plate for a first-time dramatist?

“Dude, you have no idea,” she deadpans. “When I wrote the first few drafts, it did have like 40 characters. Because of the history of Liberia and how it connected to the United States, I couldn’t see this being a play with five characters only. Now, who knows, after the reviews come out maybe they’ll say, ‘She should have stuck to five characters.’”

Brooks whittled the cast size down to a manageable eleven actors (though many will double or triple for cameos of figures from Condoleeza Rice to the bastard child of Thomas Jefferson). The cast is led by new Steppenwolf ensemble member Alana Arenas as Black Diamond, and the design and production team includes such Lookingglass usual suspects as Brian Sidney Bembridge and Andre Pluess working under the joint direction of Brooks and Catlin. “We have three choreographers. One’s doing aerials and acrobatics, one doing fight choreography, and one on dance. We have two directors, and we both have assistants. It’s ridiculous,” Brooks marvels.

Now relocated to Los Angeles once again, Brooks is performing in theater and commercials but writing too, and her scope hasn’t gotten any smaller. “I’m looking to develop a miniseries which I hope Masterpiece Theatre will pick up.” She pauses. “They don’t know it yet. They don’t know it, but Masterpiece Theatre, I’m coming for your ass!”

Black Diamond begins previews Wed 4 at Lookingglass Theatre .