Hope College will host the Ebony Road Players presenting “A Simple Question” about interracial marriage on Tuesday, Sept. 13, at 7:30 p.m. in the DeWitt Center studio theatre.

The public is invited.  Admission is free.

The play by Randy Wyatt celebrates the landmark 1968 Supreme Court court case, Loving v. Virginia, which overturned laws forbidding interracial marriage. It examines how things have (or haven’t) changed since then. The 30-minute, five-woman-ensemble piece is a kaleidoscope of stories about interracial love and marriage in America, beginning with Richard and Mildred Loving and flashing forward to real experiences in the present day.  Listen to the experiences of West Michigan women, of their relationships and their racial identities as they let down their guards by answering one simple question: “If your experience was a vehicle, which would it be?” The answers—rugged motorcycles, waveboards, hot air balloons, UFOs and more—tell volumes about interracial experience in the United States today. There will be a discussion after the performance.

The performance is part of the conversation around the “Hateful Things” and “Resilience” exhibitions on display at the De Pree Art Center and Gallery through Friday, Oct. 7. It is co-sponsored by the college’s Dean for the Arts and Humanities; De Pree Art Center and Gallery; departments of history, theatre and English; and Women’s and Gender Studies Program.

Founded in 2014 and based in Grand Rapids, Ebony Road Players is a theater group whose mission is to inspire, educate and engage cultures of the West Michigan community with high-quality theater productions focused on black experience. The group has also produced staged readings of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” Tracey Scott Wilson’s “The Story” and Jeff Stetson’s “The Meeting.”  Edye Evans Hyde of the Hope music faculty serves as executive director of the company, which also performed at Hope this past March, presenting “Having Our Say.”

The DeWitt Center is located at 141 E. 12th St., facing Columbia Avenue between 10th and 12th streets.  The studio theatre is on the ground level of the building, near the southeast corner.