An upcoming performance seeks to center the experiences of Black women while combining public health, medical education, and theater.
Mama Stories, a chorepoem by Cynthia C. Harris, focuses on the lived experiences of Black motherhood in celebration of Maternal Health Month in Tennessee. The project is in collaboration with Meharry School of Global Health, the Maternal Health Excellence Research Center at Meharry Medical College, Morehouse School of Medicine’s School of Maternal Health Equity, and Actor’s Bridge.
The performance will take place on May 20th at the New Daisy Theater at 6 p.m and is sponsored by the Tennessee Department of Health’s (TDOH) Division of Family Health and Wellness.
Harris, a playwright, director, performer, and doctoral student, said she’s long dreamed of bringing storytelling and public health together. After receiving funding and support through Meharry, Harris was able to take qualitative interviews from a research project and turn them into a performance. She said she always creates pieces using Black women’s lived experiences. Harris has written about intimate-partner violence, emotional labor, and chronic stress, and uses both pre-recorded interviews and those she has conducted.
Mama Stories is based on nearly 90 interviews “devised and collected by Morehouse Medical College’s Center for Women’s Health Equity” and focuses on women of color who had a maternal “near-miss” experience . “These women, somewhere in their pregnancy delivery or 40-ish days postpartum, had a major health issue happen that could have taken their life,” Harris said.
The study asked women about their experience, and after going through the proper channels to get the data and follow confidentiality rules, Harris worked on structuring the information theatrically.
“What we try to highlight in the play is that there’s this variety of experience, which is also true in the data,” Harris said. “It doesn’t matter how intelligent a Black woman is — that doesn’t lessen that woman’s potential for having a near-miss experience.”
Harris said she hopes this piece lives on past live performances, because its importance is timeless. She noted Tennesee’s statistics regarding maternal health outcomes and mortality, and how Black women are more susceptible to these inequities.
The TDOH’s 2025 Maternal Mortality in Tennessee report showed a 124 percent increase in pregnancy-related deaths between 2019 and 2021. TDOH said there was a 15 percent decline in 2022 and another 25 percent in 2024.
“Pregnancy-related mortality impacted some populations more than others,” the report said. “Non-Hispanic Black women had the highest mortality rate at 116 deaths per 100,000 live births, which was nearly three times the rate of non-Hispanic white women.”
In addition to reflecting on their pregancy near miss experiences, Harris said participants also spoke about racist experiences or sterotypes that impacted their care.
Though research is conducted and distributed widely in the field of academia and medicine, Harris noted that the people interviewed don’t have the chance to engage in a meaningful way.
She said theater has provided an outlet to enter conversations with people about public health while also building strategies in case they encounter these issues. Harris said there will be a survey after the play to see if they successfully increased the audience’s knowledge about maternal health outcomes.
Harris also hopes people learn how to better advocate on behalf of women of color.
“We want to get the conversation going,” Harris said. “There are all sorts of things, whether you have this medical training or not, that can save a mama’s life.”