Gin examines a number of aspects of culture, heritage, and personality in Living IncogNegro. From her time as a youth, wondering why her brother, he of darker skin than she, was the subject of racially directed ridicule when she wasn’t, despite sharing the same parentage and DNA, to being labeled as “exotic” when people (mostly white) can’t exactly figure out which box to fit her in. And on labeling, she addresses this as well, the good and bad of applying them in a society that lives by its categories. On language, she muses on code switching, changing inflection and dialect depending on the situation, and on the importance of language in self-identification and expression. She discusses performative race, the many and changing terms and phrases people use to describe color, and how it feels necessary sometimes to pretend that you’re someone your not, just to avoid conflict. There’s an enlightening piece where Gin walks through the many descriptions of color in other countries, a scene which includes some audience participation. The bit feels a bit on the long side, though that’s part of the point. She covers so many aspects of her life and experience to provide context to the question she challenges herself with in the play, but Living IncogNegro is so well constructed, it never feels preachy or as though she’s portraying herself as a victim. Living IncogNegro highlight’s Gin Hammond’s strength, both as a playwright and a performer.

And on the performing piece, Gin Hammond has quite the personality, it’s magnetic. She has a way of drawing the audience into a story, keeping them on the edge of their seats to see where she’s going, and then delivering. And on opening night at Key City Friday, she did that time and again, relating stories from her life, each relevant to a particular aspect of the point that she weaved through the evening, all told honestly and with a dramatic flair that spotlights Gin’s ability to embody the real life characters she portrays in her recollections, especially those with accents, her ability with dialects providing some of the best moments of the evening, the best example of her date at an Italian restaurant, this one as well with some audience participation.

Living IncogNegro is technically a one-woman show, and yes, it is Gin Hammond’s story, written and performed by her. She’s not alone on stage, though. Michelle Cesmat, who is also responsible for the scenic design of the show, is a portrait artist, and here she helps support Gin’s performance through live drawings and textual musings, each displayed on a monitor that hangs from the ceiling, a monitor that also presents videos, segment titles, and other media pieces that help to drive the storytelling. Gin presents her work both from behind a podium, using script prompts, and from other locations on stage, sitting or standing, whichever that she and Director Denise Winter have decided works best to make her particular point in the play. There’s a lot of help here from lighting designer Karen Anderson and sound designer Dalin Costello, each of whom have clearly worked hand in hand with Gin and Denise to coordinate the emotional punch of each scene. A prime example of this work coming together are scenes when Gin sits on stage, illuminated only by a light from above, obscuring her so that she’s a silhouette, focusing the audience’s attention on the message and not the messenger, and in turn adding some gravitas to the spoken words. The play is still under development of course, the opening night audience was the second to have seen a completed version, but as good as this is, I’d love to see a version where Gin presents it without the podium and script prompts. When it’s fully fleshed out and she can present the entirety of the play with the dramatic and emotional punch that the scenes away from the podium have, I feel like the show will go from excellent, as it is now, to outstanding, right up there with one-woman shows like Priyanka Shetty’s Elephant in the Room (which Gin smartly quotes in this show) or Madeline Sayet’s Where We Belong.

READ GREG HEILMAN'S FULL REVIEW HERE

"...the impact of its unquestionably brilliant, emotionally complex mix of self-confessional dialogue and unimpeachable truths on the hearts and minds of audience members is such that it cries out with urgency to be seen, heard, and absorbed."

"In tale after tale, Hammond lays her soul bare, delivering with a level of clarity, immediacy, poise, and near-ideal timing that transforms elements of TED Talks and Quaker meeting confessionals into an intimate evening of theatrical genius."

READ JASON VICTOR SERINUS'S FULL REVIEW HERE

"Hammond’s upbeat, highly personalized style, and professional-caliber acting takes audience members on an introspective, entertaining, and emotionally charged journey."

"It is both tenderly nostalgic and tragically current."

"Through humor and artistry, Hammond gracefully presents her stories, leaving the audience with an invitation to check their biases, recognize the power of language, and acknowledge this fast-growing population of people whose cultural identity may not match their physical one, and thereby lives on the borderlands of society."

"It is heartening to have public institutions like Key City Public Theatre actively uplifting artists whose voices are often silenced or deprioritized. Their ability to secure funding from the National Endowment for the Arts for this original work is notable."

READ ZHALEH ALMAEE'S FULL REVIEW HERE

The reason for Hammond’s popularity is clear: the woman is a force of nature.

Her far ranging perspective goes beyond and through her identity as a mixed race Black woman with light enough skin to be “passing” for white. She’s also a teacher of dialects, a skill she uses to capture the wider world. In Living IncogNegro, Hammond tells hilarious tales from her international upbringing, showcasing her ability to voice an array of dialects. This is where the play really gets moving. Hammond leaps from character to character, not simply imitating voices, but using facial expressions, gestures, and posture all with a sublimely funny accuracy. Hammond also shines in the other direction, delivering powerfully poetic soliloquies set in a darkness that stands out against the rest of the play’s color and humor.

Hammond is not, however, satisfied with simply riding waves of emotion. She skillfully sprinkles nuanced philosophical quandaries throughout the play. Towards the beginning, Hammond crosses from game show host into classroom teacher to question good and evil using equations that dissect the Mayflower, which her white mother’s family traces their lineage back to.

The true strength of what Hammond has accomplished is evident in her relatability. While the content is devastatingly personal, the additional Q&A session with the audience that takes place at the end of each performance has the power to reveal just how much people see themselves in her. Story after vulnerable story poured out of audience members at the showing I attended, and for a moment I felt surrounded by family despite being in a room full of mostly strangers. Even from my own position as a white cis man, I could easily relate to Hammond, especially her abstract mantra, “I can afford it.” An audience member asked what that repeated statement meant, and Hammond noted that even now she doesn’t fully understand it. Like all mantras, the words fold in more meaning than their simplicity suggests. What I could unfold from it was the privilege afforded to white skin in America, as well as a question around how much compassion we can afford for others as well as ourselves.

READ DEREK FIRENZE'S FULL REVIEW HERE

Gin Hammond is an award-winning Harvard University/Moscow Art Theatre graduate, as well as an actor, writer, director.  She has performed onstage both nationally and internationally, and is always excited to create for KCPT audiences.  Since 2006, Gin has been a certified Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework™ and teaches voice in many forms.  Hammond has also been a dialect and vocal coach for all of the Equity theaters in Seattle, as well as for a couple of films and video games.  Her voice can be heard on commercials, audiobooks, radio plays, podcasts, and a variety of video games including BattleTech, DotA 2, and the Undead Labs series.   Gin is the co-founder of the MFA: Meditations for Actors mobile app, and is author of the 2023 historical fiction novel, Returning the Bones, based on the play of the same name.