Hurt of a Woman

By Guru Mutonga O. Shadrack

Don't miss this deeply moving story of a mother's fight to give her son a future — without turning her back on the community that made him who he is.The title Hurt of a Woman refers to two different kinds of institutionalized segregation. In the first, "gifted and talented" students are culled from the public-school crowd and given accelerated classroom experiences. The second refers to the schools-to-prison syndrome that plagues poor, mostly inner-city, and mostly African-American families. That appears to have been the fate in store for Omari (Brian Neal, , whose recently divorced parents have separated him from public schools and shipped him off to prep school in the hope of improving his chances of avoiding one kind of pipeline and benefitting from another.

Nya, an inner-city public high school teacher, is committed to her students but desperate to give her only son Omari opportunities they'll never have. When a controversial incident at his upstate private school threatens to get him expelled, Nya must confront his rage and her own choices as a parent. But will she be able to reach him before a world beyond her control pulls him away?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Guru Mutonga O. Shadrack
• Release date: Nov 24, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201265250

Guru Mutonga O. Shadrack

Multilingual maestro:Fluent in Swahili,English,French and Spanish.I traverse linguistic landscapes with ease delivering each syllable with finesse

Book preview

HURT OF A WOMAN

A play

By Guru Mutonga O. Shadrack.

A mother's hopes for her son clash with an educational system rigged against him in HURT OF A WOMAN, the riveting new play by Mutonga 0. Shadrack (Guru). Nya, an inner-city public high school teacher, is committed to her students but desperate to give her only son Omari opportunities they'll never have.

Contact:

The Language Guru Foundation Guru Mutonga O. Shadrack

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION

NYA - Black woman, mid-late 30's. Single mother. Public H.S. Teacher. Trying to raise her teenage son on her own with much difficulty. A good teacher inspiring her students in a stressed

environment. A struggling parent doing her damndest. Strong but burning out. Smoker. Sometimes drinker. Holding together by a thread.

OMARI - Black man, late teens. Smart and astute. Rage without release. Tender and honest at his core. Something profoundly

sensitive amidst the anger. Wrestling with his identity between private school education and being from a so-called urban community. Nya's son.

JASMINE - Black or Latina woman, late teens. Sensitive and tough. A sharp bite, a soft smile. Profoundly aware of herself and her

environment. Attends upstate private school but from a so-called urban environment. In touch with the poetry of her own language.

XAVIER - Black man, mid-late 30's. Single father - struggling to connect to his own son. Marketing exec. Wounded relationship with his ex-wife.

Financially stable. Emotionally impoverished. Nya's ex- husband. Omari's father.

LAURIE - White woman, 50's. Pistol of a woman. Teaches in Public High School and can hold her own against the tough students and the stressed environment. Doesn't bite her tongue. A don't-fuck-with-me chick.

DUN - Black man, early-mid 30's. Public High School security guard. Fit and optimistic. Charismatic with women. Genuine and thoughtful and trying to be a gentleman in a stressed environment. It's not easy.

Note About The Setting:

Can be any inner city environment where the public school system is under duress.

However, the quick pace of the language is NY-inspired and should be maintained in any setting. Present Day.

Also, we have Undefined Space. This is a place where location doesn’t matter. It is sometimes an alternate reality bleeding into reality. It is sometimes just isolated reality that doesn’t require a setting. Only words.

This play is for any woman teacher, a master-educator and proud school teacher for whatever number of years.

This isn’t their story. It’s just a similar world in which they are fiercely committed educators, and worked very hard to help their students transcend. I salute you, women.

Love, Mutonga

1.

Lights up on NYA. She is on the phone, though we don’t have to really see her holding anything. She is living the call.

As she speaks, images flow behind her. Camera-phone video clips of school fights. Disjointed and perhaps emerging less into video and more into large overwhelming shadows.

NYA

Hey it’s…. it’s me. I know I shouldn’t…. but I don’t know what else to…. we need to talk. It’s about our son. He got in a fight. On school grounds. They’re going to… …

…they’re talking about…. they’re talking kicking him out. They’re talking pressing charges. They’re going to… … … I don’t know what they’re going to… … …I’m just… (beat beat beat) I’m exhausted. You know that? Like there is no more helium. I’m sinking. Like there is all this… weight… I can’t fight gravity. You know? Like I just can’t even fight this pulling down…taking all of my --- --- --- I don’t know. I don’t know.