Danielle Mone Truitt '05 (Theatre Arts), from Sacramento, has dedicated over 10 years of hard work toward her acting career. Despite numerous audition rejections and motherhood commitments, she continued auditioning throughout.
Truitt has recently created 3: Black Girl Blues, an original one-woman play about three friends who must confront their personal demons and try to stay sane in an ever-increasing society. We had the pleasure of speaking to Truitt about this project at Polite On Society.
The Power of the Story
Truitt has been working in the entertainment industry ever since she graduated with a theater arts degree from Sacramento State University. Since then, she has been nominated for two Ovation awards and one NAACP Theatre award; additionally she has worked as both voice actor and has appeared in multiple television shows; additionally she performed stage plays and even served as reference for Princess Tiana in Disney's animated film, The Princess and the Frog.
Rebel, the BET police drama series featuring Danielle Mone Truitt as Rebecca "Rebel" Knight, has become Danielle Mone Truitt's most notable work to date on screen. It has received national acclaim and opened doors for her career; delving deep into officers of color's relationships to their jobs while exploring police brutality and misconduct issues in an insightful way. It remains an essential piece of television today when police misconduct issues remain highly contentious.
Truitt is also known for her singing talent and stage writing; her one-woman show 3: Black Girl Blues has been seen by audiences from coast to coast.
This piece is an engaging portrayal of three women facing their own personal demons and dealing with past mistakes. While this performance contains minimal scenery and costume changes, Truitt and her cast more than make up for this with powerful performances that capture all three characters' contrasting stories and perspectives.
Each character narrates her story of abuse, addiction and loss to create an intimate and relatable experience for the audience. Additionally, blues music serves to heighten this pain experienced by characters; together this combination of story, music and performance evokes a powerful emotional response in viewers.
The Power of the Performance
Truitt is an award-winning stage actress who has received two Ovation Awards and one NAACP Theatre Award nomination. She stars as Officer Ayanna Bell on Dick Wolf's hit NBC television show Law and Order:SVU as well as appearing in other iconic stage productions including Dreamgirls and The Mountaintop.
Her performance of 3: Black Girl Blues is nothing short of breathtaking. Utilizing just three chairs, music stands, and side tables as props, she brings three characters vividly and poignantly to life through earthshaking interpretations of trauma, abuse and neglect that resonate powerfully in contemporary society. In doing so, she provides us a rare insight into their plight as black women.
In the opening scenes, we witness three women as they go about their daily lives: an interracial vaudeville duo trying to make it big in segregated Chicago; and a mother fighting cancer. Through chance meeting of a police officer and an ex-con about to break out from an armed robbery sentence in prison, all three come together. Reminiscing their respective past traumas together, all three women realize they share similar experiences from men who should have protected them in some form or another.
Women singing blues lyrics frequently sing about love, betrayal, abuse and loss - experiences which often reflect and contribute to creating a new black consciousness that pitted God against Satan, religion as non-secular while secular activities as sexual. It was this new consciousness which threatened religious establishments because blues became part of everyday black life rather than serving solely sacred functions like sacred music did before.
Truitt's performance stands out for more than just her impressive acting skills alone; what really stands out is how she uses her body to express emotions of each character she portrays. Her hands and face become highly expressive as she uses sound effects to enliven each scene.
The Power of the Audience
Danielle Mone Truitt understands how to harness its immense power as an audience member in her theatrical performances, using music, story and physicality to transport her audiences on an emotional journey. A true triple threat - her career has taken her from theater, to BET drama Rebel and now Fox drama series Deputy.
Truitt is also an experienced stage actress, having appeared in such productions as In the Heights, Neat, A Raisin in the Sun and Hair. Additionally she made her West Coast premiere of The Mountaintop as lead role and was nominated for two Ovation Awards - one for lead performance and another for Dreamgirls - before performing 3: Black Girl Blues to sold-out crowds at Rockwell Table and Stage venue.
As the show developed, so too did its concept. The play's result is an exploration of female self-esteem, femininity and the resurgence of an African American nappy hair movement that examines women's relationships with men, themselves and each other as it examines how these issues influence our daily lives. The audience will witness this unfold on stage with each act being performed in real time in front of an audience of viewers seated around a theater table.
Blues developed into a genre in its post-slavery years by openly exploring male and female sexuality as well as romantic relationships, reflecting its cultural context - which saw blacks' economic status remain relatively constant following emancipation yet become liberated from many of their traditional ideological constraints.
The characters in the play reflect on the complex realities of black female sexuality and their struggles against or acceptance of traditional roles. Their stories speak volumes to our ongoing quest for equality, justice and freedom in society. Their songs capture this emotion powerfully while depicting it with powerful lyrics illustrating anguish, pain anger resentment in both powerfully moving songs that bring alive each woman's story - an inspiring tribute to those fighting for equal treatment in our society today.
The Power of the Music
Truitt's one-woman show made its debut this week in Los Angeles and celebrities came out to show support. Truitt is best known for playing NYPD Sergeant Ayanna Bell on Law & Order: Organized Crime but she has also appeared in Dreamgirls, In the Heights, Neat and A Raisin in the Sun among many others.
Music can evoke powerful emotions and have profoundly beneficial impacts on our lives. According to author Elena Mannes, we begin learning music in the womb; she suggests it as a natural response to bodily rhythms. Music continues to provide comforting support throughout life - comforting us at times of distress or even exhilaration, inspiring new thought or simply entertaining and amusing us!
The blues is an American popular musical culture genre that originated after slavery's end and provided African Americans an outlet to express the realities they encountered as free women and men. While other forms of popular music used saccharine depictions of heterosexual relationships as their musical medium, the blues incorporated elements from real love relationships into its expression.
One distinctive element of this incorporation was its emphasis on personal freedoms in romantic love relationships and family bonds. Blues emphasized how an individual's romantic freedom was closely connected to his or her political and economic liberty.
Blues songs frequently address the challenges associated with finding and maintaining happy relationships, often related to women's financial circumstances and expectations set forth by white society which often supports racism.
The blues is also an outlet to express feelings associated with money and its pursuit, loneliness and its associated hardships, the importance of love and friendship and even death and illness--including grieving the death of loved ones.
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