LAUREN TURNER HINES

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congratulations to the entire cast and crew of where the suga still sweet!

Lauren is currently the Executive Producer and Artistic Director of No Dream Deferred’s WE WILL DREAM: New Works Festival (March-June 2023). The festival aims to center the Historic Bayou Road as the meeting place for black playwrights and artists living in the American South.

Lauren directed Brian Egland’s Where the Suga Still Sweet. Watch the clip to learn more about the play, the cast, and Lauren’s direction for the original work.

About the Play

In a small southern town the murder of a young black boy echoes heavily within Runna, a traumatized black male seeking refuge in communicating with his murdered friend through a single, vibrant patch of sugarcane. Though mute to the external world, Runna is able to embrace his superpower of love and mediumship but his type of love isn’t well-received by Aunt Nanny Mae and the brazen pastor Vern-Mayor who work to baptize it out of him. It is only through a passing stranger, Incwadi, that the demons of homophobia and the past are confronted as the vast field of sugarcane dies and their lives are transformed forever.

To view production photos and more, click the link below.

Lauren is a director/producer/performer and community facilitator. She is the founding Producing Artistic Director of No Dream Deferred NOLA, a community-anchored multi-media theatre production company that is dedicated to the development of new works originating in the south.

Additionally, Lauren leads as the co-executive director of the Andre Cailloux Center for Performing Arts and Cultural Justice. Driven by her interest in equitable, place-based, culturally relevant theatre, especially as it pertains to the global south, Lauren’s work lives where storytelling, community building, and politics intersect.