Douglas Lyons
By Darlene Donloe
Contributing Writer
LOS ANGELES — Playwright Douglas Lyons describes his latest work, “Don’t Touch My Hair,” as “A mega-journey where sci-fi meets HBO’s ‘Insecure,’ with a little bit of Looney Tunes, an edible and weed.”
“It’s whack a mole,” Lyons said. “It allows a conversation for race. It’s not a white-people-are-horrible conversation. It’s a look-at-the-impact-of-your-actions conversation. Look how you make a Black body feel. It reveals small micro-aggressions.”
“Don’t Touch My Hair,” written by Lyons and directed by Velani Dibba, will play at the IAMA Theatre Company Atwater Village Feb. 13-24. It stars Sarah Hollis, Jasmine Ashanti and Michael Rishawn.
The final installment of Lyons’ “The Deep Breath Trilogy: New Plays for Black Women,” “Don’t Touch My Hair” showcases the experiences and perspectives of Black women.
The trilogy’s previous two plays, “Chicken and Biscuits” and “Table 17,” have already been successful.
“Don’t Touch My Hair” centers on lifelong best friends Eemani and Jade, who decompress one afternoon over a marijuana cigarette. Unbeknownst to them, it is laced with much more than weed, spiraling the duo into a hilarious hallucination that allows them to confront, dead-on, the oppressors of the past.
The two quickly find themselves on a wild adventure.
“Every play I write is slightly different,” Lyons said. “I struggled a little bit with this one because, tonally, you have to set up a couple of things. This holds people accountable. I commend IAMA for seeing the value in this challenging topic.”
IAMA first presented a virtual reading of Lyon’s play (titled “Invisible”) in collaboration with New York City’s Queens Theatre’s Fly on the Wall series.
This is part of IAMA’s ongoing tradition of partnering with like-minded companies to develop and produce new work.
L.A. audiences will be at the forefront of this play as IAMA will present a workshop production.
Each performance will be slightly different as the creative team considers the audience’s feedback and incorporates it into the following performance to create a finished work.
Lyons, 38, said he wrote, “Don’t Touch My Hair,” after seeing a show on Broadway.
“I wanted to create something for me, for us,” said the New Haven, Conn. native. “I wanted to learn how to build this play on site. I wanted to place young Black women at the center and go on a journey that took us to a time when they didn’t have a voice. I wanted it also to be contemporary. So, we go back to 1820’s New Orleans. The two characters go back in time to a plantation — but they are still themselves. It’s done through a lens of comedy.”
Lyons decided to write plays about Black women because of the “remarkable Black women” in his circle.
“They are visionaries and fashionistas,” said Lyons, who has been working on the play since 2020. “There is a glass ceiling that many of them face — amid a racist country. I thought, there has to be a way to talk about racism without hurting Black women.”
Lyons believes racism is a strange notion.
“I think the concept of racism is laughable,” he said. “It’s idiotic. It’s for people unafraid to experience. We can continue to investigate and unpack. We like to live in the shame, hurt and nastiness of the past, which becomes that rather than pieces that create a discussion. That’s partly why this is a comedy. We’re going to laugh at ourselves. I can’t take myself or this country too seriously.”
“Chicken and Biscuits” was Lyons’ first play. It was a play about the different people in his family.
“As an actor, I’m learning about language,” he said. “ When it came to full-length scripts, I like building a world. I like the process of figuring out what is supposed to happen. I like seeing people you don’t usually see on stage —like people in my family.”
When Lyons decided to flex his writing muscle, he admitted that his growth as an artist, from actor to playwright, was a learning experience.
“The come-up has been real,” he said. “I’ve learned things in real time. At first, writing was an exercise. Now, it has transformed into a practice and a career. I fell in love with storytelling. I’ve been studying James Baldwin and Nikki Giovanni. I delved into her mind. Words have become valuable to me in a world obsessed with imagery. All of this helped me with my latest work.”
The title, “Don’t Touch My Hair,” is both literal and metaphorical, as the play explores the concept of personal and cultural boundaries.
“These ideas of America is a melting pot,” said Lyons, who studied musical theater at the University of Hartford. “We are on land that we never figured out how to share. There is a barrier to understanding. Liberate Black women and invite them into the theater. Come and release some things you deal with daily — but in the theater. It speaks to them personally. It’s an understanding of microaggression.”
Lyons, who appeared on the national tour of “Rent” and toured with “Dreamgirls” and “Book of Mormon,” spent half his life in the American theater. During that time, he’s noticed something unsettling.
“I don’t see things that love us in the theater,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons I wrote this show. This show is a liberation of the Black woman. I write for Black women. I want Black women to feel that. This show is for us by us.”
The representation of Black culture, particularly in terms of hair, is central to the narrative of “Don’t Touch My Hair.”
“It touches on Black identity, the origin of all culture,” Lyons said. “Everyone likes to adopt things from Black culture and call it their own. This is about the history of Black hair and how it affects other cultures. Don’t try to claim it when it’s mine. ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’ allows Black women to appear in the world how they want to -—without someone feeling like they have the right to touch it.”
Throughout his career, Lyons has been an actor, teacher, composer/lyricist, producer, and now a writer.
“I love it all,” said Lyons, who grew up as a preacher’s kid in the church. “I’m living the life I was supposed to. Ultimately, I don’t know what my life will be like, but I know it will be with art.”
Darlene Donloe is a freelance reporter for Wave Newspapers who covers South Los Angeles. She can be reached at ddonloe@gmail.com.
