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Black voices, white saviors: “Trouble in Mind” shows how far we haven’t come

It’s more than a little disturbing to know that Trouble in Mind was written in the early 1950s.

The play, which runs through March 9 at the Bartell Theatre, is a witty and poignant sendup of backstage dynamics in a “colored play” headed to Broadway.

Thanks to a first-time collaboration between UW-Madison’s Afro-American Studies department and Kathie Rasmussen Women’s Theatre (KRASS), Madison audiences are getting a chance to see what has changed — and what has stayed the same — in the world of race relations since then.