Join WHERE and the Castine Historical Society on Saturday, October 4, 2025 from 2:00 – 5:00 pm for a lecture and performance that will provide critical insight into the suppressed history of this region’s role in the slave trade while illuminating some of the ways that people of African heritage have made their own freedom.

In this solo black box theater show, acclaimed storyteller Antonio Rocha explores Maine’s role in the transatlantic slave trade by mapping the trajectory of this Brunswick-built vessel onto his own journey of historical recovery. His powerful performance makes visible the shared legacy connecting Africa, Brazil, and Maine while radically expanding our sense of what happened in coastal towns like Castine in centuries past. Through this creative confrontation of painful historical truths, Antonio opens the way for collective healing.

The Malaga Ship performance will be preceded by a talk by Dr. Kate McMahon, Executive Director of the Castine Historical Society and a leading scholar on New England’s role in the global slave trade. Providing historical context for the story of the Malaga, Kate will share her groundbreaking research into the involvement of Maine vessels, seamen, merchants, and investors in an economy built on stolen labor, focusing on the period between 1830–1865 and illuminating the many ways enslaved Africans made their own freedom.

Following The Malaga Ship performance, Movement teacher and Playback improviser Erin Curren will offer audience members an opportunity to process and integrate what we will have experienced. Playback invites audiences to share their own true stories while being witnessed and to watch those stories be honored with improvisation. This unique form has proven a compelling way to increase our capacity for empathy and deepen the felt-sense of our shared humanity.

For more information and registration, please visit Atlantic Black Box.