The comedic action of I Am Delivered’t takes place outside of a Black evangelical, urban church called New Jerusalem. The set, designed by Jason Ardizzone-West, locates the characters between the parking lot of this church and its entrance, with its visible, metal grating-covered doors upstage. The set design is a deceptively simple use of visual storytelling, as much of the unit set is just the outer brick wall of the church, painted yellow, with vines growing unchecked, and nothing else in the playing space but some folding chairs. The spareness of the stage furniture is appropriate for this outside location, but it also echoes the bluntness of the play’s conversation. The view the audience gets of the church itself—no iconography, no clear windows allowing glimpses inside—represents the sense of cold alienation the main characters feel. It is a hard backdrop for soft things, and this paradoxical tension carries from our...

You do not currently have access to this content.