Ijames, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2022 for “Fat Ham,” wrote “Good Bones” in 2017, well before the Chinatown debate began. But in 2024, he did a major rewrite before its production at The Public Theater in New York City, drawing inspiration from the debate and protests over the Chinatown plan.
“In the original script, it wasn’t a sports complex. It was just a bit of development,” Ijames said. “Because [Chinatown] was happening and I was seeing all the different sides talk about it, it gave me a deeper understanding of how things like this can reshape a city, a community. It was really kind of kismet that it was happening around the same time that I was doing this big revision.”
Ijames said gentrification debates are ripe for theatrical treatment. In “Good Bones,” he makes the fight personal. The character Aisha is originally from the beleaguered neighborhood and hopes a revitalization will erase her bad memories of growing up there. Earl is opposed to changing his neighborhood despite its deeply entrenched problems.
“When you come back to a place that produced you, what is your responsibility to that place?” Ijames said. “I wanted to dig into that. When you move into a community from outside of it, what is your responsibility to the community that’s extant, that’s indigenous to that place?”