Premiere Stages, the professional Equity theatre in residence at Kean University, is pleased to recognize “The Fertile River” by Vincent Terrell Durham as a Semi-Finalist for the 2023 Premiere Play Festival. “The Fertile River” rose through a competitive selection process conducted by Premiere staff and a panel of outside theatre professionals to become one of 40 Semi-Finalists out of 701 submissions. The panel was particularly impressed by the deeply gripping story, and the deftly-crafted characters and environment. Our congratulations and thanks to Vincent.

There's a powerful and ominous use of language in this play. The way it's learned, controlled, restricted, and ultimately used to paint over a sickening truth, are all explored and shown in a riveting and painful light, before that truth is pulled back and shown for exactly what it is. And, fittingly, the word choices in the script are impeccably crafted. The history here is confronted head-on, as it needs to be.

Training a bright light on an oft-ignored yet utterly shameful - and lengthy - and *continuing* chapter in American history, the Eugenics movement and forced or coerced sterilization, this play grounds a horrific concept in the physical, in the emotional, creating a world that builds, pressurizing each moment to a crescendo of fear and pain and loss. I had the pleasure of seeing a reading of this work at the 2021 Great Plains Theatre Conference, and I cannot recommend this play more highly. Miss Cora, Uncle Jesse, Arthur and River, in particular, are indelibly beautiful, and deeply felt. Stunning work.