On May 26, 2002, in Bessemer, Ala., a young African-American mother named Alice Marie was shot and killed, execution-style, by her boyfriend, while her 8-year-old son looked on. Alice Marie was pregnant at the time of her murder.

Six months later her brother, Nels'on Ellis--a Juilliard actor--wrote her story.

Clockwise from lower right: Marie Zvosec, Dario Mejia, Gerald Barrett, and Amina Royster were in the Juilliard production of Nel’son Ellis’s Ugly. Photo by Ben Davis

On December 20, 2002, the resulting play was presented in the Drama Theater--the first all-divisional, completely student-produced performance (with no faculty or administrative supervision) in that venue in at least four years. The production included representatives from each class, who provided original choreography, music, overall design, and scripting. We had two and a half weeks and a total of three rehearsals. They play was called Ugly, and it was one of the most meaningful events I've ever been a part of.

As Nels'on Ellis's play is now being prepared for an Off-Broadway production that will broaden the impact of its message beyond the Juilliard community, he asked me--as the director of that first performance--to write a reflection. What was it like to direct a play dealing with issues and circumstances that I had never touched upon in my life? Quite frankly, it could be said that a country-suburban white kid attending a private school/college in New York City had no right to direct a play dealing with domestic violence--but Nels'on would disagree, and I would soon find out why.

Keith Chappelle was another actor in the production. Photo by Ben Davis

The story of Alice Marie wasn't always intended to be one related to the Juilliard community and beyond. After his sister's death, Nels'on began the journey of seeking his own sanity. Only through time (and what Nels'on would call "divine healing") would the pain of his experience be captured on paper and finally travel through spoken word to reach outside himself.

"When I first started down the road of writing Ugly," he explains, "it was for selfish reasons: I sought to propagate my own therapy, my struggles with reality as I knew it. I didn't appreciate the events that destroyed my life, and what could I do about it? Acting class didn't help me; Alexander Technique didn't relieve my tensions with this problem, which I grappled with even in my sleep, when I could sleep. Therapists couldn't help, including the one I saw outside counseling services. As supportive as the Drama Division was, they didn't know enough about my situation to help. I didn't know how mad I would be, how helpless I would feel. I couldn't kill the man who murdered my sister, any more than I could bring her back. I didn't know that seeing the room she died in, with the bloodstains still on the floor, would haunt me. A scene I didn't see would replay itself in my mind over and over, till maybe I would find a loophole somewhere and make the act renege itself, and she would be saved. But, alas--I awoke every morning and attempted to tackle the day, yet restrained by the reality that she's gone, with the mechanics of my mind faltering at the thought of 'where was I to protect her?' ... and I could not understand why she needed to be protected from her family. But before she fades into the shadows with the other victims of domestic violence, I would tell her story ... and maybe her voice would convince someone that they shouldn't need to be protected from their family."

Ugly Storm Theater 145 W. 46th Street Wednesday-Sunday, May 28-June 8, 7 p.m. $10 cash only at the door, no reservations or advance sales. (Juilliard faculty, staff, and students may reserve $10 seats through the Student Affairs Office.)

Initially, I had reservations about directing a play whose subject matter was so close to someone I had developed a personal relationship with. There was no way around it: The part of me that approaches things involving art with poise or professionalism was paralyzed. A man had written a play based on a true account of his very own sister's brutal and painfully recent murder, and he had asked me to direct. For those who attended the singular performance, it quickly became apparent that the title of the play set the tone for the entire process. It isn't a play influenced by accounts of domestic violence; it is about domestic violence. Nowhere in the script is there any attempt to apply grace or smoothness to the characters or the events. It is not a play littered with metaphors or contingent on symbolism; it's rough and in-your-face, and the life of it thrives vibrantly on the grotesqueness of its main character's very unnecessary death. The play deals with very ugly matters and is solid in its belief that a vicarious experience is the only experience.

Everyone working on the project was sensitive to the issues of grief, but also to those of hope. We wanted to honor the life of Alice Marie and purge the demons of her death, but also wanted to warn the Alice Maries who were still alive in the world. I hoped to reach the ones who hadn't yet met their final fight, the ones who were still hanging on to the hopelessness that held them to husbands and boyfriends who had violent habits. As much as the piece focuses on the flaws of Spoke (the murderer), it also illumines the grave and avoidable mistakes made by Alice Marie. This is not a play out to persecute Spoke, naming him as the villain and moving on. This is a play about a woman who--despite the bruises on her face, despite the wisdom of her family and loved ones, despite the consistent and adamant, false accusations made against her by her boyfriend--refused to believe anything but that he loved her. This is a woman who had the full support of her family, who would have protected her and seen to it that the separation was a clean one, had Alice Marie decided to go through with it. But she didn't--and so this play is about the consequences we suffer if we don't take responsibility for our own happiness and safety.

One of the things we wanted to deflect in telling this story was the stigma that would be attached to its characters. The point of Ugly was to prove that domestic violence does not (and never will) discriminate. We didn't want people to leave the production thinking, "Poor Nels'on, it's a shame what happened to his sister." This was not a play about the Black Experience, and we didn't want to provide an opportunity for the audience to use that as an excuse. We didn't want to afford them an opportunity to detach, to separate themselves from the potential reality of domestic violence in their own lives and among their loved ones, regardless of age, race, economics, or social class.

That message is still paramount for Cedric Harris, the Juilliard alumnus who will direct Ugly in its Off-Broadway run (May 28-June 8) at the Storm Theater at 145 West 46th Street. "What's important to me is dealing with these issues, in an environment that's not judgmental on anyone's side," he says. "Alice Marie is the object of violence, but, as we know with domestic violence, it's not just about the object. The effect is like that of dropping a pebble into the ocean: It ripples out from the center point, touching many lives with expanding circles of reverberation. The most obvious one is that of her 8-year-old son, but it includes the entire family, and anyone who cared about her." Harris says he didn't see the original production, and doesn't regret that: "It leaves me free to explore without any distractions from someone else's vision, to give it a new life and a new beginning." He envisions the action as taking place in a kind of purgatory, a twilight place where Alice Marie's soul must grapple with the events that have brought it here and find some sort of closure before it can move on.

Harris says he was struck (as was I) by Nels'on's effort "to take something horrific and work through it in a way that is productive, to take a tragedy that would normally be capable of crumbling an individual and use it to create something that can keep from perpetuating tragedy, shifting that energy and using it in a way to end that suffering."

The proceeds generated by ticket sales from the upcoming production of Ugly (which has been funded in part by a Juilliard summer grant and additional funding from the School) will be donated to Safe Horizon, the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing violence and helping victims of abuse and other crimes. Safe Horizon will conduct a question-and-answer session after the shows and provide informational materials for the theater's lobby.

On behalf of all the artist/students who helped this play find its world premiere, and were there to honor the life and mourn the death of Alice Marie, I hope that we have provided a story strong enough to motivate others to take steps to avoid her fate. I hope the play thrives in its new Off-Broadway home, and that the new actors who will be taking on these roles and saying these words are prepared for a personal and moving experience—one that is beautiful and very Ugly.

Michael Paul Simpson is a third-year drama student.