Black Santa

Playwright Aaron Mays’ zeitgeist-capturing satire Black Santa is set in an upper-crust day school, where, in the days before holiday break, in the classroom of the school’s only African-American teacher, a third grader named Sharifa declares “Santa Claus is a Black man from Detroit.” The comment sets off a firestorm that spreads to the school’s administration, which pressures the teacher to create an ad campaign that reinforces Kris Kringle’s essential whiteness.