GOLDEN
ACT Contemporary Theatre presents GOLDEN from April 26 to May 11, 2025. Librarians at Seattle Public Library created this list of books and films to enhance your experience of the show. Annotations provided by publisher unless otherwise noted.
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An American Marriage
When her new husband is arrested and imprisoned for a crime she knows he did not commit, a rising artist takes comfort in a longtime friendship, only to encounter unexpected challenges in resuming her life when her husband's sentence is suddenly overturned. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Behold the Dreamers
A compulsively readable debut novel about marriage, immigration, class, race, and the trapdoors in the American Dream--the unforgettable story of a young Cameroonian couple making a new life in New York just as the Great Recession upends the economy.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Unsettled
From the best-selling author of The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, a searing multi-generational novel—set in the 1980s in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia and in the tiny town of Bonaparte, Alabama—about a mother fighting for her sanity and survival. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store
When a skeleton is unearthed in the small, close-knit community of Chicken Hill, Pennsylvania, in 1972, an unforgettable cast of characters, living on the margins of white, Christian America closely guard a secret, especially when the truth is revealed about what happened and the part the town's white establishment played in it. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Moonrise Over New Jessup
[Minnick's] debut novel follows a black woman who will do whatever it takes to protect all she loves at the beginning of the civil rights movement in Alabama. (NoveList)
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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The Detroit Project
Three provocative dramas make up Dominique Morisseau's sweeping examination of the sociopolitical history of Detroit: Detroit '67, which takes place during the race riots of 1967, Paradise Blue, set in a small jazz club in Detroit's Blackbottom neighborhood, and Skeleton Crew, which explores an auto plant on the eve of the 2008 financial collapse.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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Sweat
Based on Nottage's extensive research and interviews with real residents of Reading, Sweat is a topical reflection of the present and poignant outcome of America's economic decline.
Format: Book
Availability: All copies in use
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The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health
In this much-needed guide, psychologist and professor Rheeda Walker offers an unflinching exploration of Black mental health, and provides a comprehensive road map to getting the care you need and deserve.
Format: Book
Availability: Available
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ACT's GOLDEN website
Morris Golden, fighting to save his laundromat after The Great Recession of 2008, finds an unexpected source of hope in a broken change machine with mysterious powers. From the mind of celebrated Seattle writer Andrew Lee Creech, and first seen at ACT’s inaugural New Works Northwest festival, comes a riveting world premiere that peels back the layers of lives and relationships to reveal the profound impact of choice and the enduring power of human connection. Golden is part of Creech’s nine-play cycle, The Legacy Plays Project, which examines pivotal moments in the lives of Black Americans throughout U.S. history.
View ACT's GOLDEN website