Hurt Village

de Katori Hall

Set in the early noughties, 'Hurt Village' is the story of a community disregarded by the state. A housing project in North Memphis, originally developed in the 1950s to attract white residents, the area had, by the nineties, become a byword for poverty and drug-related crime. In 2000, the Memphis City government received a $35 million federal grant in order to redevelop the area, and in 2003, the neighbourhood was demolished, following the relocation of hundreds of black residents. The fourth of Hall's 'Memphis Plays', 'Hurt Village' premiered in New York in 2012.