Inspired by her own experiences as a mixed-race woman in the United States, Adding Up America: Solving the Race Equation sees award-winning singer, songwriter Monique DeBose explore what happens when identity is reduced to a simple equation. Based on the true events of when DeBose was stuck at a pivotal crossroads, choosing between a future with her Black Ghanaian lover or her White British husband, she did what any mathematician would do – she ran the numbers. Using mathematical formulas as a metaphor, DeBose examines society’s obsession with categorisation and dismantles the racial equations she has been calculating her entire life. This play speaks to being able to choose one’s own path and live outside the binary. Blending humour, storytelling, and original Jazz-inspired music sung live over a recorded underscore, Adding up America: Solving the Race Equation encourages audiences to think critically about how race is named, inherited, and lived – and what happens when the maths doesn’t add up.

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