Uniform Justice

Intent & Process

Uniform Justice was commissioned by the Mayor’s Innovation Team in Memphis as a community-focused complement to the Insight policing program carried out by the Memphis Police Department in partnership with the School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University. The focus of the piece is to illuminate the context, issues, themes, images, and the range of hopes and threats that mark the lives and relationships of community members and police officers in south Memphis.

The TÉA artists worked to deepen insight and build appreciation for the personal and social complexities of the crises in the rule of law and police authority by dramatizing the thoughts, feelings, decisions, and actions, of community members and police officers in south Memphis.

Uniform Justice is a one-act play featuring original music and lyrics. It opens in present day south Memphis and dramatizes the cares and threats of community residents and police officers in a neighborhood on the violent edge of the city’s crisis in the rule of law. 

The playwright, along with the Memphis TÉA Company, conducted over two-dozen, hour-long, one-on-one, Insight conversations with community members, and members of the Memphis Police Department. 

Uniform Justice was originally performed in collaboration with the Hattie Lou Theatre Company in Memphis (2014) and subsequently at the New West Theatre in Cleveland, the New York Fringe Theatre Festival (2015), and venues in New York and New Jersey.