N

Adrienne Earle Penders "N" dramatizes the struggle between playwright Eugene ONeill and actor Charles Sidney Gilpin over the inclusion of the "N" word in the script for ONeills first box office hit, The Emperor Jones. in 1920. The play was turned into a film "The Black Emperor of Broadway" to be screened in 2020. ONeill and Gilpin fight from rehearsal to Broadway run and, eventually, to the London tour. To Eugene ONeill, a word is just a word. For Charles Gilpin, those six letters have the power to unravel everything that he has ever worked for. At stake for ONeill? His artistic vision. For Gilpin? His entire career and family. Eugene ONeills groundbreaking 1921 play, The Emperor Jones, was the first American play that featured an African-American actor in the lead role on Broadway. Charles S. Gilpins portrayal of Emperor Brutus Jones was hailed as "revelatory," and he was named the finest actor of the age. The opening of The Emperor Jones made stars of both men; it was ONeills first commercial success, and Charles Gilpin became the toast of the theater world, becoming the first black man to be honored by the Drama League of New York, But by 1926, ONeill was a legend and Gilpin was lost to history. The script of "N" explores the challenging relationship between Gilpin and ONeill and how it ultimately hinged on one word; a word that lifted one of them to the heights of American theater, and a word that destroyed the other.