The AMT Theater is a welcome addition to the Meatpacking District. The theater presents productions that foster new artistic voices and is sponsoring the 2026 Broadway Bound Theatre Festival, “where playwrights take center stage.”
Say My Name is one of the plays featured in the festival. It reflects AMT Theater’s mission.
Twenty years ago, playwright Jeff Perlman was mayor of Delray Beach, Florida. During his time in office, a police officer shot and killed sixteen-year-old Jerrod Miller. This event profoundly changed Perlman’s life. Two decades later, Perlman has written a play that asks us to remember young victims of gun violence.
Marcus Thompson is the teenage victim of a police shooting. Eric Ruffin portrays him as a young man frozen by death and left alone with what happened to him. Ruffin, who began acting at age seven and has appeared on television and off-Broadway, remains on stage for much of the play. He creates a sympathetic character searching for the reasons behind his death.
Tim Redmond brings experience from off-Broadway, television, and film. He portrays Mayor Jim Jenkins, who is haunted—literally—by Marcus Thompson, the victim of a police shooting. Redmond powerfully depicts a man who decides that truth matters more than the political strategy that could increase his power. Jenkins does not see himself as having a breakdown, but rather a breakthrough. He believes that by telling Marcus’ story, he can make people listen and change things.
Jennifer Laine Williams plays Sarah, the mayor’s political adviser. With experience in off-off-Broadway productions, film, and television, Williams portrays a woman who favors moderation over immediate action. Sarah argues that the mayor can create change gradually by gaining power and working from within the system. Speaking to the mayor twenty years later, she points out that she remained involved in politics and helped effect minor changes, while he destroyed his career and accomplished nothing. Her perspective underscores one of the play’s bleakest truths: society pauses briefly when a child is shot, then moves on without meaningful change.
At times, Marcus is accompanied by two ancestors. Amanda Bailey, whose work includes film and television, appears alongside Richard Yarrell, who makes his debut in Say My Name. Together, Bailey and Yarrell remind us that Marcus’ shooting was not an isolated incident. The ancestors function as a chorus. Just as un a classical Greek tragedy, they establish moral themes and bridge the gap between the actors and the audience.
Marcus’ mother, Rhoda, is played by an actor trained at SUNY Purchase’s Conservatory of Acting with experience in theater productions. Imani Jones is especially poignant in the scene where, as a bereaved mother, she goes through her son’s bedroom. Objects such as a pillow and sneakers bring back different memories of him.
David Reynolds is the police officer who shot Marcus. Craig Cartwright portrays him. At first, Reynolds is devastated by the shooting. Later, like much of society, he moves on to a new job, a new wife, and a new state. Cartwright ably captures Reynolds’ shifting emotions and brings experience from screen and off-Broadway work.
Giuseppe Jones, whose work includes television and off-Broadway, portrays Reverend Clayton. He tries to console Rhoda, but she turns on him, reminding him that he said God would hold her son in His hands. Instead, she says, God is holding Marcus in the morgue with a bullet in his head. Twenty years later, Clayton is overwhelmed by the 43 children of his congregation who have been shot. The mayor says he believed that if he told Marcus’ story, people would listen. Reverend Clayton replies that they listened for about a week. Then he continues naming children who were shot and killed making it clear that nothing has changed.
Jenkins finally realizes that he must free Marcus. He has made his own grief more important than Marcus’ peace. Jenkins argues that society treats people of color differently and decides what it sees when encountering a Black child in the dark. His indictment is directed at all of us. We all need to change our hearts and minds.
In this 90-minute production, Jeff Perlman forces us to confront our prejudices and examine society’s response to the shooting of Black children. He asks us to move beyond the brief, knee-jerk reaction that often follows such news. Approximately 2,000 Black children and teenagers are shot and killed every year in the United States. Perlman demands that society stop accepting these numbers.
