"The White Card" at Emerson Paramount Center

In this stunning world premiere, The White Card unfolds a meticulously crafted story, raising uncomfortable questions about what — and who — are on display. Exploring contemporary headlines and cultural touchstones, Claudia Rankine's The White Card refuses to remain “just a play,” safely entrenched on the stage. Like her 2014 New York Times bestselling book of poetry entitled Citizen: An American Lyric, this new play unpacks the insidious ways in which racism manifests itself in everyday situations, prompting the question, “Can American society progress if whiteness stays invisible?”

In the elegant loft of a powerful, well-intentioned white couple in the New York City art world, a black artist named Charlotte Cummings arrives in the hopes of selling her new work. When the couple’s activist son joins them for dinner, tensions arise, truths are interrogated and the notion of intent — both conscious and unconscious — becomes paramount.