Bring it, The Balusters<\/em> does. Over the course of four months, the board members squabble over speed humps versus bumps, racial profiling, homophobia, neighborhood surveillance, PETA, nepotism, a baby named Rocket, and\u2014yes\u2014period-inappropriate balusters. Alliances form. \u201cWhite girl tears\u201d are shed. Identity politics surface and resurface. Faux pas and microaggressions abound.<\/p>\n Lindsay-Abaire is used to writing toward fear\u2014his 2006 drama Rabbit Hole<\/em>, which he wrote as a new father, centers on child loss\u2014but this play fostered its own breed of anxiety. \u201cAm I scared? Sure, I\u2019m scared\u2026this is 10 people discussing porches,\u201d he says. \u201cBut every play that I\u2019ve written scares me in some ways.\u201d<\/p>\n One risk in this case involved writing for so many identities that were not his own. \u201cI was worried about getting them all wrong,\u201d Lindsay-Abaire says. \u201cBut because the play was so much about a community, and not just one person on a journey, I felt like my job was to create a fully fleshed-out, dimensional community.\u201d To stay on track\u2014especially when it came to his nonwhite characters, of whom there are several\u2014he did something he rarely does: he shared the script with trusted peers, especially writers of color, throughout the revision process. \u201cThey not only gave me permission but encouraged me to make the characters of color as prickly as the white characters,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n \u201cOn reading it, there wasn\u2019t one moment where I thought, \u2018Oh, she probably wouldn\u2019t say that,\u2019\u201d says Anika Noni Rose, who plays the straight-shooting Vernon Point newcomer Kyra, in whose comfortable living room the play\u2019s action is set. \u201cAs a Black woman, with someone from a different space writing for me, you often have a moment where you feel like, Can we talk about this?<\/em> But we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n The rowdy board in the play was inspired by the neighborhood association in Lindsay-Abaire\u2019s own historic district, Brooklyn\u2019s Prospect Park South\u2014of which his wife, Christine, is a member. The playwright sums up their conflicts as \u201coperatic,\u201d and recalls Christine returning from a meeting to recount the fallout over a drainage ditch. \u201cI would think, What is this really about? It can\u2019t possibly be about the drainage ditch,\u201d Lindsay-Abaire says. \u201cSomeone is obsessed with something else that\u2019s much deeper in their soul.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/assets.vogue.com\/photos\/69e7a2f64c3269de1f102966\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/Kayli%2520Carter%2C%2520Carl%2520Clemons-Hopkins%2C%2520Anika%2520Noni%2520Rose%2520and%2520Jeena%2520Yi%2520in%2520MTC_s%2520The%2520Balusters%2C%2520a%2520new%2520play%2520by%2520David%2520Lindsay-Abaire%2C%2520directed%2520by%2520Kenny%2520Leon%2520%25C2%25A9Jeremy%2520Daniel.jpeg\"\/)
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