For Immediate Release: April 28, 2025
Media Contact: Joshua Henry Jenkins | [email protected]
Theatre Communications Group Celebrates the Publication of Confederates by Tony-Nominated Dominique Morisseau
A bold, genre-defying exploration of Black womanhood, freedom, and history, available now from TCG Books
New York, NY – Theatre Communications Group (TCG) celebrates the publication of Confederates by acclaimed playwright Dominique Morisseau, available today from TCG Books. Confederates follows two Black women living more than a century apart as they struggle to define freedom for themselves, revealing the enduring tensions between past and present with striking urgency and imagination.
Confederates tells the story of Sara, an enslaved rebel ferrying information from the plantation to Union soldiers, and Sandra, a contemporary political science professor navigating the entrenched patriarchy of a predominantly white university. As the play unfolds, the line between their worlds begins to blur, raising urgent questions about how far we have come since 1865 and how far we still have to go.
Infused with a sharp satirical tone, Confederates juxtaposes humor, sexuality, and intellect alongside pain and resistance, offering a daring meditation on history, identity, and liberation.
“With Confederates, Dominique Morisseau pushes beyond the boundaries of realism to interrogate history and the present boldly and playfully,” said LaTeshia Ellerson, Co-Executive Director of National Engagement at TCG. “It’s a thrilling, provocative work that challenges audiences to reconsider the narratives we inherit and the futures we imagine.”
Critics have widely praised Confederates:
“Beautiful language that’s wedded to tales of adversity—the play is full of such paradoxes, another one being that Confederates is a work about racism that is truly funny.” —New York Times
“The audacious shifts of timeframe and tone in Confederates come as a bit of a surprise. [Morisseau] pulls it off with power and finesse.” —Time Out New York
“Morisseau’s voice gets fiercer and richer the farther she gets from naturalism.” —Vulture
“A master at weaving together personal, historical, and social narratives, Morisseau here delivers her most ambitious, possibly most galvanizing, work yet.” —Theatrely
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dominique Morisseau is the author of The Detroit Project, which includes the plays Skeleton Crew, Paradise Blue, and Detroit ’67. Additional plays include Pipeline, Sunset Baby, Blood at the Root, Follow Me To Nellie’s, Confederates, Bad Kreyòl, and the Broadway musical Ain’t Too Proud – The Life and Times of the Temptations, for which she earned a Tony nomination. She is currently developing Hippest Trip: The Soul Train Musical. Morisseau is an alumna of The Public Theater Emerging Writers Group, Women’s Project Lab, and Lark Playwrights Workshop, and has developed work at Sundance Lab, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and the Eugene O’Neill Playwrights Conference. She also served as co-producer on the Showtime series Shameless. Her honors include the Steinberg Playwright Award, the NBTF August Wilson Playwriting Award, and the MacArthur Genius Grant.
PUBLICATION DETAILS
Confederates
by Dominique Morisseau
96 pages | $16.95
Published by Theatre Communications Group
Publication Date: April 28, 2026
ISBN: 9781636702520
Format: Paperback
Since its founding in 1984, TCG Books has grown to become North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 22 winners of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama on its book list. The book program commits to the life-long career of its playwrights, keeping all of their plays in print. TCG Books events are supported in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for theatre, leads for a just and thriving theatre ecology. Since its founding in 1961, TCG’s constituency has grown from a handful of groundbreaking theatres to over 750 organizations (including member theatres, affiliates, universities) and over 3,000 individual members. Through its programs and services, TCG reaches over one million students, audience members, and theatre professionals each year. TCG offers networking and knowledge-building opportunities through research, communications, and events, including the biennial TCG National Conference, one of the largest nationwide gatherings of theatre people; awards grants and scholarships to theatre companies and individual artists; advocates on the federal level; and through the Global Theater Initiative, TCG's partnership with the Laboratory for Global Performance and Politics, serves as the U.S. Center of the International Theatre Institute. TCG is North America’s largest independent trade publisher of dramatic literature, with 21 Pulitzer Prizes for Drama on the TCG booklist. It also publishes the award-winning American Theatre magazine and ARTSEARCH®, the essential source for a career in the arts. TCG believes its vision of “a better world for theatre, and a better world because of theatre” can be achieved through individual and collective action, adaptive and responsive leadership, and equitable representation in all areas of practice. TCG is led by Emilya Cachapero, LaTeshia Ellerson and Alisha Tonsic. www.tcg.org.