A Pint of Understanding

Inspired by real events and created by a diverse team, A Pint of Understanding is an original musical whose jazz-inspired multi-genre score creates vivid moments that reflect the rich diversity, noble aspirations, and deep conflicts of America itself. 

It’s 2012, with racial tensions in America escalating and about to explode. White police sergeant Tim O’Connor arrests African American scholar Chester Washington III for breaking into what turns out to be his own house—in one of America’s most progressive cities. A media frenzy erupts when the professor’s daughter Chloe’s video commentary goes viral, and U.S. President Michael Rivera’s comments, taken out of context, condemn the police. 

Trying to calm the waters, the President invites Chester and Tim to the White House for a beer, and he sends the pair on a national Racism in America listening tour, which Chloe films. Chester, Tim and Chloe’s trust ebbs and flows as conversations collide and they encounter a nation divided. An examination of race, class, perspective and hope, the story follows this unlikely trio’s journey as each changes in ways they never would have believed — or perhaps wanted. As director Benny Sato Ambush has said, “It’s a really thick cocktail of emotions.”

As a creative team, composers Joel LaRue Smith and Joseph Smith and lyricist/book writer Lee Phenner draw on different life experiences but share a passion for creating work of the highest caliber that resonates at the deepest level. Diverse in terms of race, ethnic heritages, genders, identities, and orientations, the core team also includes collaborators Benny Sato Ambush, director and story adviser, and Scott Nicholas, music director. 

In setting A Pint of Understanding in 2012, the team weaves in experiences from that pivot point in history—when Trayvon Martin was killed and the country faced a racist backlash on the eve of re-electing its first Black president—as well as from the perspective gained since Ferguson, Black Lives Matter, and the racial reckoning sparked by the police murder of George Floyd. 

Critically, the three main characters, Chester Washington, Tim O’Connor, and Chloe Washington, are forced to grapple with their pasts in order to forge the future. As their personal stories collide, they become a microcosm for change.