On a plain black background, a dark grayed hand casts a white ballot that says “The Vote” by Kelundra Smith into a light grey voter’s box. Blue and white writing announces the play reading series. Papers include logos of a bottle tree with blue bottles and black script detailing other sponsors.

 Join Hush Harbor Lab, Atlanta's premier new play incubator, on Tuesday, June 17 at 7 p.m. for a reading of a new play called "The Vote" by Kelundra Smith. With the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act and Juneteenth just around the corner, this timely work is inspired by the true story of the "Original 33" African American men elected to the Georgia General Assembly in 1868.

In the play, Reverend Campbell McNeal is in the fight of his life-- both with his son, Charles over the family church and for a seat in Georgia's new state senate. With his son not speaking to him at home, and democrats and conservative republicans conspiring against him in the streets, will he be able to bring home a victory for the sharecroppers who are depending on him? Or, will the New South succumb to its old ways? "The Vote" is a new play about the two things we hold dear: family and democracy.

"The Vote" is a part of the Reconstruction Trilogy of plays that Smith is penning about post Civil War Georgia. Her play "The Wash," which is inspired by the Atlanta Washerwomen's Strike of 1881, premiered in Atlanta last year and has since been produced in St. Louis and is currently onstage in New York City. Productions in Chicago, Boston, and Houston are forthcoming.
Tickets are free; donations encouraged. Tickets can be reserved at this link: www.thevote.brownpapertickets.com.

Tickets are also available at the door the day of the reading.