Cop Out is a brand new, direct address style performance piece that reflects the complicated personal and professional experiences and emotions of police officers in our country today. In an effort to advance the dialogue between law enforcement and communities in a constructive way, The Red Door commissioned playwrights from across the country to interview a broad spectrum of police officers, including many officers of color and cops from diverse backgrounds, and write monologues to reflect their experiences.
Cop Out will be presented as a series of monologues performed in succession with a talkback following each performance. Our intention is to more accurately reflect the complexity of emotions and experiences involved in what we too often think of as a binary, black-white, good-bad narrative, consistent with the Red Door mission of changing the racial ecology of Portland through the arts.
Writers include (in no particular order): J David Shanks, Ben Watkins, Javon Johnson, J Nicole Brooks, Bonnie Ratner, Shepsu Aaku, Harrison Rivers, Nambi E Kelley, and Andrea Stolowitz