Locked explores an African American family’s past and the pain of slavery, racism, and discrimination in America. A young man, Jalani Pace, returns to his grandmother’s house in the South for a visit and discovers an old lock hidden in a drawer. When Jalani asks about the lock, his grandmother, Mary Alice, becomes nervous that the family’s secrets (and her pain) will be unearthed.
What lessons will the old lock teach Jalani, his family, and our nation about race, the past, and our future? Locked, a full-length play in two acts, explores this question and celebrates the human spirit’s ability to overcome.
Dr. Pace is the former director of the Montclair State University Art Galleries in Upper Montclair, New Jersey. He is the sculptor commissioned to create Triumph of the Human Spirit for the African Burial Ground Memorial in Foley Square Park in New York City. He is currently a Professor of Art at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
