Preserves: A Kansas Story (A Staged Reading)

Join us for Preserves, a staged reading exploring love, legacy, and the untold stories of Kansas's Black history.
About this Event

Preserves: A Kansas Story
A staged reading of an original screenplay

Join us for an intimate and engaging evening as we bring Preserves: A Kansas Story to life. This original screenplay invites audiences into the heartland through a moving story of love, legacy, and community, brought to life by a talented cast of actors. Don't miss this special opportunity to experience the story before it becomes a feature film.

Preserves is an independent feature film directed by Micah Ariel Watson, writer of Canaan. The film follows a dancer and an ex-offender whose romance unearths a century-old secret buried in their small town, echoing places like Nicodemus, KS. At its heart, Preserves is a love story set against the quilted backdrop of Kansas’s rich African American history, woven with the legacies of the Exoduster Movement and Black faith traditions. This film will honor the rich midwestern land that Micah’s family has called home for more than a century.

We are proud to partner with The Kansas African American Museum and the Arts Council of Wichita for a staged reading of the Preserves script. This gathering invites the community to encounter Kansas history in a living, intimate way, and to step into the early life of a film we believe will become one of the state’s cultural gems.

In Preserves, the protagonist discovers the power of archives and communal memory. It feels only right, then, that the Preserves team and TKAAM come together to remind Kansas of the beauty and depth of its own history.